Seeing the farmer discarding citronella leaves after harvesting, Truong ‘picked’ on extracting the essential oil, began the journey to collect billions.
For a week, Duong Ngoc Truong has been preparing for her second essential oil retailer in Hanoi. Along Van Mieu street, while some shops had to close due to epidemic diseases, Truong’s showroom was painted and repaired, making many people look back.
“Last year, the revenue of 4 essential oil factories was 2 billion VND. This year try to double”, a 23-year-old man from Thach Son, Thach Thanh, Thanh Hoa said.
The school’s path of starting a career in essential oil production started with a “silly question” in a summer afternoon of 2017. That day, when passing a 500-hectare lemongrass field in the neighboring commune, he was a second year student The National Economics University named Truong saw that people just took tubers to throw leaves, Truong ran to ask. The peasants immediately scolded: “I don’t understand what kind of college I am? If lemongrass doesn’t take roots, then get leaves?”. He warmly, that very night, went to the internet to look up, when the words “prepared to extract lemongrass leaf oil” caught his eyes. An instant money-making plan took shape.
The next day, Truong bought lemongrass leaves, discarded in the field, and then went to the place to sell the essential oil extractor, required testing before buying. The 30-bottle test batch was sold on social media and sold out in just a few hours. Seeing promising products, he decided to borrow 300 million from friends, buy production machinery. The first factory was established at home with 4 workers, officially operated in August 2017.
Knowing that the work must be concentrated in the countryside, the School reserved the university after finishing the third year. But when he started production, he realized “things are not like dreams” when it failed continuously, the batches did not produce the desired quality. There are days that work overnight, ending at 2-3am, but tens of liters of essential oils still have to be discarded. During 6 months of pouring back to work, learning from experience, adjusting little by little until the first batch of essential oil was shipped, Truong lost 5 kg.
Thought the difficulty was over, but when the official production, the selling price per liter of product was doubled due to incurring additional advertising costs. For the next six months, the goods were unsold, piled up in the workshop, and the workers owed 50% of the wages.
Luu Quang Hai, a classmate and one of the first to start a business with the school, said he learned the decency from his friend. “The school is the type of person who, when falling, will get up, correct and redo, not give up. In the period when the goods cannot be sold, there is a time when the customer suggested the School dilute the oil with kerosene to lower the price, easy to sell. He firmly refused “, Mr. Hai said.
“Although being scolded for being conservative, my father’s pesticide poisoning case many years ago kept me from getting lost,” Truong explained for his actions.
Ten years ago, people in the mountainous areas of Thach Son from Truong hometown had a movement to grow sugarcane and watermelon because their income was higher than other crops. In order to have a beautiful design, without pests, many families sprayed with pesticides.
Year of the 10th grade school, one day his father had to go to the emergency room. The doctor concluded that the poisoning caused by the toxin of the insecticide in the blood was too large. When he woke up, Mr. Duong Van Thanh (Truong’s father) held his son’s hand and said: “Try to escape later, don’t work in farming but suffer”.
Having a career plan in the hometown, she just went to university, borrowed money and invested in growing clean vegetables. He hired people to work hundreds of square meters of land, buy a net to crank the fields, and make an automatic watering system. Also because he was determined not to use pesticides, the vegetables were bitten through holes by worms and carried them to the market for sale, but were criticized and indifferent. Loss of tens of millions, lessons learned for 18-year-old youth at that time is that without a brand, no one knows their products.
The first failure, the school turned to farming with an uncle in the countryside. To learn about different markets and know-how, he traveled hundreds of kilometers by motorbike to famous noodle making regions such as Bac Kan, former Ha Tay, Hung Yen to learn recipes for making without chemicals at production costs. cheaper export. However, later, due to disagreement about the branding, they stopped cooperating. A few months later, Truong continued to produce areca nut wine with a friend but could not go a long way due to the lack of common sense.
Three times in a row, sometimes frustrated, he gave up the idea of starting a business, but then encouraged “When he was a child, he still didn’t cry when he was a child, went to school on rainy days and kept getting up, now difficult towel a little let go is not “.
A bad childhood makes the striving spirit of the Thanh country strong. The new six months to “release” quality products but no one buys, not discouraged, Truong comes to each company to offer, invite to try the product. There are days when we leave empty-handed, the sun is hot and sweaty. Perseverance paid off gradually. In 2018, the School sold 500 liters. To secure the brand, he applied for the intellectual property rights, which had failed in previous startups.
In addition to lemongrass, trees such as cinnamon, cajuput, wormwood, grapefruit peel, and mandarin shells … were also encouraged by the School to encourage families and many farmers in the commune to participate in organic planting to produce essential oils. “These are all products related to human health, so be careful and ensure from raw materials,” the 23-year-old boy advised his relatives.
When the consumption of goods began to flow smoothly, in 2018, the School borrowed from banks to build a second facility, one year later to build the next two facilities. In addition to essential oils, there are now more types such as jasmine perfume, perilla distilled water, garlic distilled water … The school’s essential oil brand is ordered by a number of major customers to manufacture cosmetics. The retail chain penetrates into organic drugstores and food stores nationwide.
Mr. Le Chi Cuong, who has 10 years working as the head of Truong Son village, Thach Son commune, said many young people in the village at a young age like Truong have not yet had a career orientation. Meanwhile, at the age of 23, the school has oriented to do sustainable and clean agriculture since university is very rare and precious. Over the past years, the school has created jobs for 20-30 villagers, with an income of 160,000 VND / day, much higher than the local common ground.
In the first days of October, in the home oil factory in Thach Son commune, Thach Thanh, Thanh Hoa, there was a fragrant aroma. School and father are busy buying lemongrass and lemongrass from local people. Once in a while, someone praised his brilliant son, Mr. Thanh chuckled again and looked up at the picture of the school holding a large and smiling bunch of lemongrass hanging in the house. That is the lemongrass bundle of the flood in 2018, reduced by up to 50% of essential oils due to water infiltration but still bought by boys. “Despite the loss, I am still happy to see that the workers in my hometown are happy,” he recalled.
vnexpress