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Military doctor Dang Tuong Kham became the first Vietnamese to produce alcohol products from cocoa trees. The business he runs is also considered a model of Vietnamese cocoa by the International Cocoa Association (ICCO).
Adherents of the flavor of love - chocolate - will surely want to once visit the cocoa garden "capital" in Dong Nai. Just away from the city. About 130 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Phu Hoa commune, Dinh Quan district - where the headquarters of Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd. is located - is a "red address" for tourists, to discover the rich yeast of cocoa fruit wine. tall, or the sweet, swirling taste of a cup of hot cocoa and, above all, inspiring chocolate.
Adherents of the flavor of love - chocolate - will surely want to once visit the cocoa garden "capital" in Dong Nai. Just away from the city. About 130 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Phu Hoa commune, Dinh Quan district - where the headquarters of Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd. is located - is a "red address" for tourists, to discover the rich yeast of cocoa fruit wine. tall, or the sweet, swirling taste of a cup of hot cocoa and, above all, inspiring chocolate.
Military doctor Dang Tuong Kham - founder of Trong Duc Cocoa Company Limited
Those aftertaste of love, in the journey of discovery, will be the source of the question, who built this wonderful country, so that people who come here will feel lightheaded, even after being far away, they still remember...
Cocoa trees came to Dong Nai since the 80s of the last century. But it was not until 2003 that the national cocoa program "activated" businesses to participate in the program to invest in cultivation, purchase products, promote exports... Gradually, cocoa trees affirmed their effectiveness. economic results in Dong Nai. But since 2005, when Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd. was established and accompanied with farmers, cocoa trees have been upgraded with many valuable products, such as wine, powder, cocoa butter, chocolate. cola…
And it is also surprising that the person who "contributed the soul" to the cocoa tree in Dong Nai was not a "genuine" farmer from the beginning, he was military doctor Dang Tuong Kham - the founder of the Company. Trong Duc cocoa. Raising the level of Dinh Quan cocoa trees with many unique products, at the same time, Dr. Kham's life is also an interesting journey: at the age of 14, he joined the army; 42 years of fighting across the Southern battlefields and returning with a light backpack; Practicing medicine and inventing cough medicine and inhalation medicine under the Euca brand helped his family's economy become better off... But, Mr. Kham's life up to now has been tied to the Dinh Quan cocoa tree.
At the age of 70, Mr. Kham suddenly wanted to invest in the agricultural sector. At this time, the movement to grow cocoa trees is starting to appear in Vietnam. Mr. Kham chose the cocoa tree because he had had time to learn and research about this tree variety since the 1980s. Determined to realize this intention, in 2005 he gathered money and sold his house in Ho Chi Minh City to the region. Dinh Quan, Dong Nai province bought land to grow cocoa. After that, he founded Trong Duc Cocoa Company, the predecessor of the current Trong Duc Cocoa Company Limited, starting with the first 5,000 cocoa trees.
Cocoa trees have now grown in many localities in Vietnam, such as Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Dong Nai, Lam Dong... But after harvest, farmers only sell cocoa in the form of raw beans. Thanks to some knowledge from contact and research on cocoa trees while stationed in the Dak Lua area, Tan Phu district, Dong Nai province (because at this time Vietnam was affiliated with the Soviet Union to grow cocoa trees here). , Mr. Kham decided to increase the value of cocoa by taking advantage of all the ingredients of the fruit (cocoa juice, meat in the cocoa fruit...), processing it into usable products.
Originally a doctor who successfully researched medical and pharmaceutical products, he now switched to researching food products from cocoa beans. He succeeded when a series of cocoa products were born such as wine and syrup. , cocoa butter, chocolate... His problem of utilizing cocoa by-products has very high economic efficiency.
Because if you only sell cocoa beans, then 10 tons of fresh cocoa will be used for 1 ton of dry beans, selling for 72 million VND, and the rest will be thrown away. But when utilised, pressing 10 tons of cocoa beans will yield 500 kg of cocoa juice, and 1kg of juice can make 20 bottles of wine selling for 160,000 VND/bottle. The value of this pile of discarded fruit if utilised. good will bring a value of 1.6 billion VND.
Director Dang Tuong Khanh introduces products to Japanese customers
It's easy to hear the story, but in reality, Mr. Kham spent the first 5 years of building a cocoa farm full of ups and downs and hardships. Because he knows, if you want to be successful in cocoa processing, you must proactively source raw materials. Mr. Kham boldly associated with farmers in three provinces of Lam Dong, Dong Nai and Binh Thuan (near his farm) to expand raw material areas. He proactively invests in plant varieties and resells them to farmers in the area. The farmer only has to pay half the price for the seedlings, the remaining half will be paid after harvesting the fruit...
However, the development of too large an area of cocoa trees in 2010, up to 1,000 hectares, was beyond human strength, making it difficult to proactively take care of the trees and difficult to compete with industrial trees. Other crops such as pepper, coffee, and cocoa failed, and farmers cut them down to convert to other crops. The raw cocoa area has shrunk by more than half. Farmers still owed tens of billions of dong for seedlings, so Mr. Kham decided to write off the entire debt.
Undeterred by failure, Mr. Kham still persevered in keeping cocoa trees by borrowing money from the bank to carry out contracts to purchase farmers' products, keeping product prices stable, beneficial to cocoa growers and owners. mobilize input materials to produce products from cocoa trees that he has researched. Investing heavily in research, importing production lines, by-products from cocoa intestines and pods, successfully with more than a dozen products of wine, spirits, candy, cocoa syrup... Even cocoa pods He also used it to produce fertilizer.
Military doctor Dang Tuong Kham became the first Vietnamese to produce alcohol products from cocoa trees. The business he runs is also considered a model of Vietnamese cocoa by the International Cocoa Association (ICCO).
At the age of 80, Mr. Kham "ceded ground" to the youngest son in the family - Director Dang Tuong Khanh of the current Trong Duc Cocoa Company Limited. Following his father's passion, Khanh's first job was to find a way to sell the product that his father had successfully researched.
On the one hand, he persistently searched for markets and introduced Trong Duc cocoa products to domestic and foreign consumers. On the other hand, he visited countries with developed cocoa industries, learning how to consume products in each market. After four years of continuing his career, Mr. Khanh succeeded in establishing a joint venture company with a Japanese partner to produce and sell cocoa products.
With the market, the company's production and processing activities are increasingly developing. Currently, Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd. has over 16 food products made from pure cocoa. This has drawn farmers back to growing and supplying raw cocoa to the company...
Now, the raw cocoa tree area of Trong Duc Company has also become a unique tourist destination of Dinh Quan land, Dong Nai province. The good news spreads far and wide, domestic and foreign tourists who have the opportunity to pass through Dong Nai province want to stop by once and visit the vast cocoa garden. When it's harvest season, cocoa pods cover the tree trunks, making the whole garden bright yellow. Outside the reception yard, guests are invited to try all of the company's cocoa products, from a sweet and passionate cup of hot cocoa, or a cool cup of iced cocoa to cocoa liquor, chocolate candy...
Today's delicious cocoa fruit dishes are enjoyed by tourists, like the fragrant heart of the 84-year-old military doctor, for the land, for people, and for cocoa trees to grow green in Dinh Quan countryside. , Dong Nai.
Thanh Hong