Good quality, nice packaging

The Dau Anh Chu Noodles Cooperative in Canh village, Nam Duong commune (Luc Ngan district) is a unit participating in the project. According to Nguyen Thi Kieu Anh, Director of the cooperative, in March 2021, the unit was supported by the Department of Industry and Trade with a noodle making machine, a large-capacity boiler and new packaging and labels with a total cost of 300 million VND (13,150 USD).

The Luc Nam Custard-apple Production Cooperative is supported with cartons containing custard-apples.

The machines have helped raise the noodle making capacity to 250-300 kg per hour, an increase of 150-200 kg per hour compared to before. The products have uniform thinness, with the failure rate down by 90 percent, and it is easy to cut, dry and bundle them.

The quality of noodles has improved. When processing, noddles become more chewy. The cooperative has also been supported to design 3-layer cartons and high-class bags for product packaging. As a result, the noodle quality is ensured, with beautiful designs, meeting the increasing tastes of customers.

In Luc Nam district, the Nghia Phuong Custard-apple Cooperative (Nghia Phuong commune) and the Luc Nam Custard-apple Production Cooperative (Huyen Son commune) saw more favorable sale during the last crop thanks to the packaging and traceability stamp support from the project to develop goods that meet provincial-level criteria in 2021. Each unit is providced with more than 6,000 color printed cartons of 5 kg and 10 kg, along with traceability stamps.

In addition to the above three units, in the 2019 – 2021 period, more than 20 enterprises and cooperatives in the province have been supported to participate in the project. Up to now, the provincial authorities have completed the checking and acceptance process.

Towards products that meet national standards

According to Duong Van Tuan, head of the Trade Management Office under the Department of Industry and Trade, the project helps cooperatives produce noodles and custard-apples in the province to improve productivity, quality and appearance, and get linked to form concentrated production areas, while facilitating the selling of products. Concentrated production and consumption are much more favorable than before. Manual noodle production methods are gradually replaced by modern machines while dependence on weather eases and fewer workers are needed.

In particular, after the checking and acceptance process, all products are certified by competent authorities as meeting national standards. This is a condition for agricultural products to be consumed smoothly, especially at e-commerce platforms during the Covid-19 epidemic.

In order to continue improving and promoting the advantages of the project, the Trade Management Office has advised the Department of Industry and Trade to annually use industrial promotion funds to continue supporting businesses and cooperatives in terms of machinery, labeling, packaging, and trade promotion.

The Department of Industry and Trade also asked localities to proactively arrange district-level budgets for units participating in the project. Enterprises and cooperatives themselves need to actively mobilize all resources to improve production capacity and scale to meet domestic and international demands. Those already supported must maintain achieved results and expand production, business and export markets.

In the coming time, the Department of Industry and Trade will coordinate with relevant units to assess and summarize the entire project implementation period in 2019-2021, then submit it to the provincial People's Committee for recognition of products meeting provincial-level criteria. The recognition results are the basis for the Department of Industry and Trade and localities to continue to expand the project, while organizing events to promote trade, connect supply and demand, expand consumption markets, and improve the position of local agricultural products.

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