Dreaming of taking lotus flowers across all five continents, young Ngô Chí Công from Đồng Tháp decided to pool all the money he saved while studying in France to start a preserved fresh flower business.
Ngô Chí Công
His dream of being his own boss began at school, so after studying in France for 7 years, Ngô Chí Công, born in 1989 and holding a master’s degree in chemical technology, immediately ventured into business. Initially, Công pooled capital with friends who had studied with him in France to open a pastry shop in Ho Chi Minh City. After a year of poor performance, he decided to transfer the business and return to Đồng Tháp.
‘During a trip to Đà Lạt, I discovered that everlasting roses were sold there and learned that artisan Nguyễn Công Hóa made these products. I visited him and came up with the idea of creating preserved fresh lotus flowers, hoping to preserve and promote the image of our homeland's lotus flowers in both domestic and global markets,’ Công said.
Công said he began making fresh-preserved lotus flowers in mid-2015 with an initial investment of nearly one billion dong. He had saved some of this money while studying abroad and borrowed the rest from relatives. Initially, he sent materials to artisan Hóa for processing and purchased all the finished products.
Fresh-preserved lotus flowers can last a year without losing their color or darkening
What distinguishes preserved fresh lotus flowers from ordinary flowers is their storage life. While regular fresh lotuses last only 1–2 days, preserved ones can last a year without wilting, fading or blackening. ‘This is a gift I want to create to bring the image of Đồng Tháp lotuses around the world. It is also a keepsake tourists can retain after visiting Đồng Tháp and Vietnam,’ Công shared.
Because this was a new product being tested for the first time, few people knew about preserved fresh lotus flowers, making commercialization much more difficult. Công had to invest considerable time and money in developing and promoting the product. Yet sales were not very promising, and almost a year later Công was still operating at a loss.
“Despite mounting difficulties with investment capital, personnel, and the market, I have never once thought of giving up. Customer complaints show us where we are falling short and how to improve. Once we succeed in preserving freshly scented lotus flowers for around a year, we may soon be able to perfect the way the color spreads across the petals over time,” Công shared.
Công’s preserved fresh lotus flowers are now sold in Đồng Tháp and at a shop on Lê Quang Định Street in Bình Thạnh District, Ho Chi Minh City, at a volume of 500–800 flowers per month and a price of 129,000 dong each. Công also partners with a Vietnamese-goods shop in Paris, France, to display and sell the products there.
Besides making preserved fresh lotus flowers, Công also makes ceramic vases using hydrographic dipping technology, releasing 300–400 products each month at prices from 200,000 to over one million dong per vase.
Although the products have become better known in the market, Công said their production costs are quite high, so this entrepreneur born in the 1980s has yet to break even with his business model. However, the profits earned do partly offset product costs.
Discussing this year's plans, Công said he would first perfect the preserved lotus product and find ways to reduce its price to the most reasonable level. He would seek funding to build a workshop and expand into Buddhist countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar…
Công is also researching several dried flowers from Đồng Tháp, including Sa Đéc roses, lisianthus, and orchids, to serve the domestic market and work toward exports.
Collected
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