TÂY NINH ( WNAM MONITORING): From simple rice paper of his hometown, a young entrepreneur in Tây Ninh Province has turned this local staple into a modern product, reaching international markets.
Tây Ninh is known as Việt Nam’s cassava hub with a long tradition of making rice paper, and so Đặng Khánh Duy, general director of Tân Nhiên Company, wanted to elevate his hometown’s specialty.
His company is the first to commercialise rice paper that does not need to be dipped in water for use.
In 2012, he began supporting his family to produce cassava, which is a key ingredient in rice paper, to supply rice paper producers.
At that time, he saw many issues in the traditional rice paper-making process, particularly the use of bleaching agents by some companies to whiten the flour.
As a result, he opted not to use any chemicals in his products.
In the beginning, he had numerous challenges such as curled and clumped rice paper when he stretched it thin, and poor ingredient ratio causing the product’s colour to vary between yellow, black and white.
However, Duy and his wife discovered a manual solution – repeatedly soaking, settling, and draining the flour so that it would naturally whiten.
Even without chemicals, their rice paper can last six to 12 months.
By 2018, Tây Ninh Province’s rice paper market still mainly consisted of handmade products wrapped in nylon bags, so he decided to build a professional brand and set up a factory.
He later upgraded his factory to be certified with stringent international food safety standards, and opened a second factory in 2019 and a third in 2020.
Also in 2019, he exported his first 500kg batch of rice paper to a South Korean customer.
Currently, Tân Nhiên’s factory produces 10–20 tonnes of products per day, creating stable jobs for over 400 local workers.
Tân Nhiên rice paper has been recognised as a five-star One Commune One Product good, and exported to the US, Japan, Taiwan (China) and South Korea.
Beyond rice paper, he has been expanding his business to utilise more of his province’s specialties with products such as shrimp salt, rice paper salad, dipping sauces and convenient spices.
According to Đặng Hồng Anh, chairman of Việt Nam Young Entrepreneurs Association (VYEA), small and medium-sized firms are economic pioneers, playing a key role encouraging innovation and the global expansion of Vietnamese brands.
With over 600,000 hectares of agricultural land, Tây Ninh Province is pushing high-tech agriculture and exporting agricultural products to over 40 global markets.
Nguyễn Minh Lâm, deputy chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, affirmed that the province would be committed to creating favourable conditions for enterprises to invest in science and technology.
