Cocoa magnate: Sometimes I want to surrender, clear up
Indifferent to agriculture and only when he was given the right to inherit from his father's hand and instilled a goal of cocoa development, Mr. Dang Tuong Khanh, Director of Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd, found it. see passion. He is putting every determination to achieve with the enthusiasm of his father who is a doctor - excellent physician Dang Truong Kham.
We are slower than other countries
. Reporter: International organizations have ranked Vietnamese cocoa among the best groups in the world. From his point of view, a cocoa maker, how do you value this specificity?
+ Mr. Dang Tuong Khanh : Vietnam cocoa industry (VN) has only recently developed, following many countries. Even in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is slower than Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines. However, the soil plus many other factors that are creating Vietnamese cocoa products have quite unique flavor.
. That's good, so cocoa producers have benefited?
+ The period of more than 10 years ago, cocoa farmers did not benefit much and if compared to other disadvantaged trees. Our company itself in the early years with farmers opened the material area, producing cocoa products also struggled in business. Sometimes it seems like it can't stay.
However, many international organizations and investment funds are investing heavily in the Vietnamese cocoa industry. This has brought many values and brands to this new field.
. Sir, farming has never been easy, especially the field is still quite new in Vietnam like cocoa?
+ Perhaps the most arduous of the early period must be mentioned to my father, a man at the age of six weeks to start a business. He wanted to do something for agriculture, farmers and not want to live a quiet life in retirement.
Thinking of doing it, he gathered all his family's capital and went to Tan Phu (Dong Nai) to buy land and plant cocoa. After that, we chose to cooperate with farmers and quickly expand the material area to hundreds of hectares in Lam Dong and areas of Lam Dong.
Mr. Dang Tuong Khanh has ambition to build a Vietnamese cocoa brand to compete fairly with foreign competitors. Photo: QUANG HUY
Each "crisis", cut off cocoa
. The handshake with farmers to build material areas has been discussed a lot but when starting to work, it is not easy. What about your company?
+ At the beginning, there was no revenue, only investment. It means to spend money to exchange for future expectations. We also do not measure all business games in the market. For example, there are foreign-invested enterprises buying in the material areas where the company is cooperating with farmers. They pushed up the buying price despite the very small production capacity and only selected areas with good materials to buy.
The consequence of overturning the price, many farmers do not see the nature of the problem has come back saying we are pressing their prices. In addition, there is a nearly five-year period of low cocoa prices, plus the rise of many other industrial crops that many people cut down cocoa trees.
. So is this a way for your company to revive business?
+ In order to maintain the raw material area, we determined to have a good price. In order to achieve that, deep processing is not possible, but it is not possible to sell crude. In fact, when we have a large material area, we have invested heavily in machines and factories.
Everything of cocoa fruit can make money. There are preliminary products such as making paste cocoa beans for export to foreign countries or processing cocoa for restaurants and hotels ... but there are also products with Trong Duc's own brand like powder Cocoa, wine ... These are very strong products with no small value.
Farmers have changed their minds
Now farmers understand the story to have resources, must have output for the product. Therefore, farmers identify themselves as producers, not thinking in the way farmers only cultivate and suffer. It is this way of thinking that forces them to always strive and find ways to grow crops to improve cocoa productivity and quality.
Thanks to this thought, now both Trong Duc Company and peasants are in harmony with the common goal. Evidence that we have well developed cocoa growing areas in four provinces of Lam Dong, Binh Thuan, Ba Ria and Dong Nai with a total area of over 1,000 hectares. All of this output is used for processing up to 70%, so the price of raw materials for farmers is guaranteed.
Bringing Vietnamese brand cocoa to Japan and Korea
. Do you think agricultural investment requires persistence?
+ A provincial official once asked me how to think about the chain of success. I say the link chain requires fairness and transparency for the people in the chain. If we persevere, chain production will bring sustainable growth.
In fact, thanks to perseverance in the past 14 years in the joint play of Trong Duc Company with farmers, everyone enjoyed great benefits, the price of subsidizing people increased every year, with good income. And my company has more markets, new customers, new products, revenue ...
. In fact, people often look at business results to admire without seeing the journeys and hard times of a company. How was your experience of this?
+ There are times when we want to let go. Sometimes headaches because many farmers say our father and son go to cheat. In addition, most of the investment capital is self-sufficient, so it has to manage to have a business cash flow, pay on time for people ... so many times just want to clean up. As before, the family had to sell the land on Saigon to settle all the big debts for the bank.
However, when facing difficulties, I always remember my father's advice that if in cooperation, relatives do not understand, need to be persistent to make people see and trust. Because once there is prestige and belief, everything will be resolved smoothly.
. What are your expectations for the future development strategy of the company?
+ I still persist in parallel with farmers in building a large material area to gather a lot of goods, stable and unbreakable.
It is the persistent steps that have stable material areas and international standards so many foreign partners like Korea and Japan have put their trust in cooperating with us.
Especially Japanese people, after a long time in both sides, we have come to a decision to build a tropical cocoa beans factory in Dinh Quan (Dong Nai). From here, the Vietnamese cocoa brand has a stepping stone to reach the world market further.
. Thank you, sir.
Now I prefer to live in rural areas than in urban areas
If you look back on the long-term investment journey of nearly 20 years, choose agriculture that is hard, while if real estate investment can be easier to get richer. Now do you think to choose the path of agricultural investment?
+ In 2010, when my father called out to help him with a hand, in fact, in the beginning, I only thought about living near my father to convince him to return to the city to rest. What the family has built up here turns into a farm, buying and processing cocoa for fun is the main thing.
However, when I was up close to him, listening to his concerns, going with him to the farmer, seeing the confidence of farmers in the heart of the cocoa industry, I suddenly felt that I had to be responsible with my father. sincerely devoted to developing the cocoa industry.
Mr. Dang Tuong Khanh and the staff of the cocoa nursery are like. Photo: PM
Sometimes I hugged a truck to buy fruit to reduce the maximum cost. This action was completely contrary to the past, I think the things that my father did were too much trouble, like the lack of seed sales, and three years later. When it comes to peasant life, agriculture has changed my mind about how to keep my father's passion away.
Now even though I have a house in Saigon, I want to go back to the cocoa garden a few days. I prefer to live in rural areas because people are friendly and clean.
. As the second generation, do you think what you do is better than your father did?
+ More advantageous because I am young, learn a lot, go to many advanced countries in the cocoa industry, think differently and apply quickly. But I still lost to my father about business experience, because I went too fast and also failed because I went too fast because I thought I was right.