Watermelon pho, dragon fruit rice paper and cabbage noodles... 'rescue' agricultural products
Due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, farmers are stuck with product output, so the young man has combined familiar fruits such as watermelon and dragon fruit with traditional vermicelli and pho to create new and unique products.
That is Le Duy Toan in Cu Chi, Ho Chi Minh City. At first, Toan bought watermelons from farmers to give to everyone, but he found that it was only a short-term solution. “Vietnam’s strength is rice, the quality of our agricultural products is very good. Why not combine them to help farmers and make traditional products unique and new?”, he asked.
He saw that everyone had seen rice noodles, rice paper, and pho made from white rice. Meanwhile, Vietnamese agricultural products are diverse and delicious, so why not combine them to create attractive products that bring a lot of value. Not only watermelon, Toan has perfected dragon fruit rice paper. At first, Toan chose white dragon fruit to make rice paper, but the finished product did not taste good.
Therefore, Toan decided to use red dragon fruit because the rice paper has a beautiful color and the fruit has a sweet taste. After 1 week of research and many times of testing different recipes, Toan finally launched unique products. Currently, with watermelon, Toan can make vermicelli, pho and rice paper.
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| Rice and fruit products. Photo: Internet |
In addition to rice paper, vermicelli, and pho made from watermelon and dragon fruit, he has researched and combined many other agricultural products and now has 48 different products, such as brown rice paper, black rice, turmeric, green tea, etc. Noodles include black sesame noodles, spinach, carrots, beets, and butterfly pea flowers.
There are also other types such as rice vermicelli, dried fresh vermicelli, Hue beef vermicelli, rice vermicelli, Quang noodles, dried rice paper,... there are also rice paper masks made from wheat flour specifically for the Korean beauty market.
“I want the world to know about watermelon vermicelli and dragon fruit rice paper made in Vietnam,” said Le Duy Toan. “I have established a more sustainable and long-term path. That is to make watermelon vermicelli a key product to boost exports. Once this is taken into account, it means that watermelon vermicelli is not a seasonal product. Specifically, we have joined hands with farmers to build raw material areas.”
Currently, the young man is continuing to invest in research to make noodles, rice vermicelli, and Hue beef noodle soup using watermelon. In addition, he is combining many other agricultural products to increase the value of Vietnamese agricultural products, so that farmers have a stable output for their agricultural products.
