WATCH CLIP:
In late February, at the sesame rice paper production facility in Nhan Son commune (Do Luong district, Nghe An), the working atmosphere in the factory was very bustling. Dozens of workers worked tirelessly to meet customer orders.
Carefully checking each package before leaving the factory, Mr. Nguyen Ba Thang (born in 1990), Production Director of Luong Son rice paper facility, said that the quality of the rice paper produced must be consistent, maintaining the traditional flavor, and meeting customer tastes.
Graduated in construction, Thang was absorbed in large and small projects from North to South. After four years of living away from his wife and children, in a situation of “here today, gone tomorrow”, he and his classmate and fellow countryman Nguyen Ngoc Phuong (born in 1989, residing in Quang Son commune, Do Luong) wanted to return home to live with their family.
What to do to make a living in the countryside? After much discussion and research, the young couple chose to start a business with the village's own product - sesame rice paper.
“Wherever I go, I see that local specialties are invested in and branded, bringing in large income. Sesame rice paper is also a famous specialty far and wide, well received by the market. However, people in the countryside only produce by hand, and have not focused on building brands, expanding the market and developing,” Thang confided.
Instead of building a clay oven and buying firewood to burn for the rice paper making oven, in 2018, the couple borrowed land, opened a small, closed facility, and hired mechanics to design a rice paper production line. The stages of milling flour, mixing flour, and making rice paper are all automated.
Mr. Thang shared that the drying stage is the key factor to make the rice paper fragrant and crispy. It took him and the mechanic more than half a year to research and perfect the machine.
Meanwhile, Mr. Phuong is in charge of the market, traveling everywhere to survey customers' needs and tastes, building a network of collaborators and agents, connecting to introduce sesame rice paper at booths and supermarkets.
In response to that relentless effort, orders from Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai to Hanoi, Hai Phong came in droves, and products were sold out as soon as they were made.
In 2021, Luong Son rice paper brand was recognized as a 3-star OCOP at the provincial level. This was also the year the factory received its first export order to other countries.
“Through a partner company in the export group, the first Nghe An rice paper cakes were exported to the Japanese market. This market is very strict, from the quality, product design to the weight of each cake must be uniform,” said Mr. Thang.
From mid-2022, the young couple decided to expand production scale to meet market demand. The factory is nearly 1,000m2 wide with a semi-automatic production line, with a total investment of more than 4 billion VND, put into operation. Thanks to that, the factory can produce about 50,000 sesame rice paper cakes per day.
In 2022, the facility exported 1 million sesame rice crackers to the Japanese market, worth 2.2 billion VND, distributed in grocery stores and supermarkets in Japan.
Talking about their upcoming plans, the young couple revealed that they will continue to diversify their products, enhance the Luong Son rice paper brand, and expand the export market to European countries.
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