Quang Ninh: Industrial promotion helps new product development

The Quang Ninh Province Industrial Promotion and Industrial Development Advisory Center, in collaboration with the Thinh Phat Mushroom Joint Stock Company, kicked off a project to demonstrate a lingzhi mushroom production and processing model, aimed at assisting enterprises to develop lingzhi mushroom extracts and tea products.

According to a market report by the Thinh Phat Mushroom Joint Stock Company, lingzhi mushroom tea bag and extracts are very beneficial for health and begin to attract consumers. Here in Vietnam, lingzhi mushroom tea bags are sold for high prices. A number of Vietnamese enterprises produced lingzhi mushroom extracts and tea products, but sales of these products remained humble because the products were made with backward technology and therefore had a modest essence concentration, high production costs, and poor design.

The reality shows that the lingzhi mushroom extract and tea market is still new in Vietnam, while the number of people knowing about and using the products keeps increasing. There is no enterprise producing these products in Quang Ninh Province. To fill this market room, the Thinh Phat Mushroom Joint Stock Company researched and procured technology and equipment to produce lingzhi mushroom tea bag and extracts. With advice from the center, Thinh Phat prepared “lingzhi mushroom production and processing demonstration model” project to look for assistance from industrial promotion programs. The project has a total cost of VND4.5 billion, of which VND400 million is to be funded by the national industrial promotion program. 

The company’s representative said that lingzhi mushroom production is developed at both the company and in households. Saplings are bought from the Agricultural Genetics Institute’s Center for Plant Biotechnology, so material is guaranteed both in quality and quantity. The production lines are under trial operation. They are expected to produce 2,500kg of lingzhi mushroom teabags and 1,500kg of lingzhi mushroom extract/year, bringing in an after-tax profit of VND517 million per annum.

The project is expected to profit its beneficiaries. However, according to Pham Quang Thai - Deputy Director of the Quang Ninh Province Department of Industry and Trade, Hoanh Bo is a mountainous district with sizeable plantation areas, with acacia accounting for the majority. Annually, approximately 100,000 cubic meters of acacia timber were exploited, mainly used in wood chip factories. The young part of the tree as well as branches, which cannot be used for making wooden products, can be used to make shelves for use in lingzhi and other cooking mushroom production. Hoanh Bo has a large number of people becoming unemployed due to transformation of agricultural land use purposes. The project is expected to provide them with jobs and therefore contribute to minimizing potential social problems.

Committed to environmental protection, Thinh Phat will turn all of residues from mushroom production into organic fertilizers for sale to farmers or organic fertilizers production facilities in the region. Bags, covers and other devices are reused for the next batches of lingzhi mushroom production.

Viet Nga / ven.vn