Starting a business with freeze-dried fruit

As a member of the Women's Union of Thanh Binh Ward (Dien Bien Phu City), Ms. Tran Thi Ha is a person who dares to think, dares to do, and overcomes difficulties to develop her family's economy. With the support of the Women's Union and local authorities, Ms. Ha boldly borrowed money to invest in machinery to dry fresh fruit into dried fruit.

Sharing her startup idea, Ms. Ha said: I see that in our province, most of the dried fruit products sold in the market are imported from other places; in the area there is no facility to purchase and process seasonal dried fruit products; meanwhile, the province has many advantages to implement this model. The locality has available: Pu Lau honey pineapple (Muong Nha commune, Dien Bien district), Pu Nhi plum (Dien Bien Dong district), every harvest season, traders from other provinces come to buy directly. Products harvested and produced locally will reduce intermediate costs and have advantages when displayed in supermarkets and agents. The finished freeze-dried fruit still retains almost the same color, flavor, and nutrition as fresh fruit; the customer base of this product line is also quite diverse. To promote local advantages and contribute to product consumption for local people, I came up with the idea and determined to implement it.

In the early days of starting her business, Ms. Ha encountered many difficulties and failures. She had to research on her own, so the products she made were not as expected. Many times they were damaged due to over-drying, other times the quality was not up to standard, many times she had to throw away the damaged products. Not discouraged, Ms. Ha encouraged herself, if others can do it, she can do it too.

After the failures, Ms. Ha gradually gained more experience. She borrowed 80 million VND from the Social Policy Bank to invest in machinery and the entire fruit drying process was done in a closed system, ensuring food hygiene and safety. Thanks to that, after more than 2 years of implementation, the project has brought about clear results. Currently, Ms. Ha's cold fruit drying model exports to the domestic and foreign markets dried fruits such as squash, banana, pineapple, hawthorn, jackfruit, plum, male papaya flowers, bringing in revenue of more than 300 million VND/year.

Ms. Pham Thi Thu Nga, residing in Group 10, Muong Thanh Ward, said: I often buy dried fruit products from Ms. Ha's house such as persimmons, bananas, jackfruit, pineapples. The products are delicious, clean, of good quality, with clear origin and do not have to be ordered from other provinces.

Ms. Dinh Thi Van, Vice President of the Women's Union of Thanh Binh Ward (Dien Bien Phu City) said: The project of member Tran Thi Ha was selected as a model to introduce to the Provincial Women's Union to participate in the "Women's Entrepreneurship Ideas" contest in 2021 and won the Second Prize. After a period of development from ideas to reality, Ms. Ha's products have gained prestige in the market, consumed in the province and outside the province such as Son La, Lam Dong. The model has "inspired" women members in the ward to start businesses, develop the economy, create conditions and opportunities to help women escape poverty and rise up to become rich legitimately.

Not only stopping at the small model, Ms. Ha hopes that in the future, she and her sisters can share the idea of building a cooperative to be a place to consume agricultural products of the people and together develop the economy, striving to become rich legitimately.

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