![]() Thanh decided to rent three hectares of land and build more plants to make the new products. If a ton of desiccated coconut fetched $2,300, these fetched $5,000. In 2011 a Taiwanese customer suggested that his company should produce canned coconut juice and cream. Workers at Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Company pack cans of coconut cream. He believed customers would come to his company if it had the right management system and standardization. He has invested in obtaining international quality certification including ISO, HACCP, BRC, and ISF. But I tried a few more times and got customers." ![]() "The first time I returned home empty-handed. Thanh understood that to do big business he had to attend international fairs. In 2008 a customer in the Middle East bought nearly 600 tons of desiccated coconut from the company. Initially it sold its products domestically or exported them to China. Luong Quoi has become one of the key coconut exporters in Ben Tre. His company’s coconut growing area has expanded to 6,100 hectares and an annual yield of 80 million fruits. His production lines churn out a variety of products from canned coconut oil to juice and milk. Over the next two decades, he constantly updated technologies. In 2000 his new generation desiccated coconut production line with an annual output of 1,000 tons was ready. Even today some small establishments use this method." ![]() "I processed copra in that way, designing a roller drying system to increase productivity and reduce labor. He knew that in foreign countries they ground the coconut so that more of the surface was exposed to heat, helping it dry faster and make the oil pressing easier. Thanh had understood by then it would be difficult to achieve a breakthrough without innovation.Īt that time older and larger plants in Vietnam still dried copra by burning rice husk or charcoal, which took up to four days. In 1997 they established Luong Quoi Coconut firm with an annual pressing output of 2,000 tons of coconut oil. "My father-in-law said if I seriously wanted to do business, he would give me his land and house ownership certificate to pledge for a bank loan," Thanh says.Īfter getting a loan of VND40 million in the early 1990s, he and his wife and their friends quickly started a business. He and his wife planned to join hands with some friends to hire a machine and place to press coconut oil, but had no money. In 1995 he quit the center when life was difficult and Vietnam’s coconut processing industry gradually fell behind that of neighboring countries such as Thailand and the Philippines. The general director of Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Company was born in the southern province of Ben Tre, Vietnam’s main coconut growing area. "In 1991, after the Soviet Union collapsed, it became impossible to sell large volumes, and many small businesses had to close," Thanh recalls. Then Thanh moved to the Dong Go Experimental Research Center (now Dong Go Coconut Center, part of the Research Institute for Oil and Oil Plants under the Ministry of Industry and Trade) and worked there for 10 years. The plant simply took out the flesh, dried it and pressed it for oil to sell domestically and barter with Eastern European countries. When Vietnam still had a command economy, Thanh and his wife worked at a state-owned coconut processing plant.
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