Quitting journalism, applying digital technology to make Diep Bach Black Garlic to "save her husband"

Present at Tay Bac Cooperative (Vieng Lan commune, Yen Chau district, Son La) - the address for producing black garlic under the brand name "Diep Bach Black Garlic" - a 4-star OCOP product, famous throughout the country, we could not help but be surprised by the hustle and bustle of this agricultural cooperative in the highlands. The processing workshop has many departments working enthusiastically: classifying raw goods, washing, drying, slicing, drying, packaging, inspecting, labeling, transporting goods... The workers are women of the Thai ethnic group in the area, who are farmers but have a very fast, neat, clean and precise working style in a professional manner.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen Linh - Director of Tay Bac Cooperative opened the meeting with us with an unhappy story: Previously, I worked at the Radio and Television Station of Bac Yen district (Son La). In 2015, when my husband and some of his friends decided to invest in producing this black garlic product but were not successful, they had to throw away dozens of kilograms of the product while the capital was borrowed for each penny. After discussing with my husband, I decided to quit journalism and come here to help my husband make black garlic.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen Linh - Director of Tay Bac Cooperative introduces new products, processed from Yen Chau agricultural products of the Cooperative.

With her dynamic and flexible nature, along with the journalistic skills she had accumulated over the years, Ms. Linh decided to pursue her husband’s desire to make black garlic using a more scientific method. First, Ms. Linh surveyed the fresh garlic raw material market in the district and province to evaluate the investment scale and initial quality through the quality of raw materials.

After seeing that Yen Chau district has many communes and villages growing garlic with high productivity and good quality, it is completely possible to form a large enough raw material area for the production of goods with black garlic products; Ms. Linh and her family confidently started researching the method of processing black garlic from fresh garlic materials available in the district market.

Diep Bach black garlic product of Tay Bac Cooperative has been recognized as a 4-star OCOP product, currently being distributed in many provinces and cities in the country and exported to Korea.

"At that time, our capital was limited, we had to borrow money, so we did not dare to invest in buying modern machinery. We had to go online to find information about the processing process, about the dryer, about the fermentation process... to create a completely clean black garlic product, without the intervention of chemicals, but the product is still nutritious and delicious in quality, beautiful in appearance, low in price and can be preserved for a long time. With all those criteria, we spent months searching for information, applying experiments, going through many failures to achieve success. Fortunately, the State is very interested in developing information technology; it is open in managing social networks, so our search for information and support is very convenient. Now, Diep Bach black garlic of Tay Bac Cooperative has achieved a 4-star OCOP product, the Cooperative can produce more than 3 tons of black garlic per month, sometimes there is no product to sell", Ms. Linh said.

Taking technology as the key to cooperative development

Pointing to the sample stall with dozens of products processed from different agricultural products: dried jackfruit, dried banana, black garlic wine..., Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen Linh said: After the success of the Diep Bach Black Garlic product, becoming a HOT item, Tay Bac Cooperative continued to apply science, technology and digital technology to develop many new products. These new products of the Cooperative take raw materials entirely from agricultural products in the province and district, contributing to the consumption of agricultural products for people, creating jobs and increasing income for dozens of members of the Cooperative. At the same time, meeting the emulation criteria of the movement "One commune, one product".

Since its establishment, Tay Bac Cooperative has been awarded many times for its outstanding achievements in developing the collective economic sector, cooperatives, building local agricultural product brands...

To make these bold decisions, Tay Bac Cooperative had very lively discussions about developing new products. Ms. Lo Thi Lua, a member of Tay Bac Cooperative, residing in Huoi He village, Vieng Lan commune, Yen Chau district, Son La province, said: I am just a farmer. Since joining the Cooperative, I have been instructed to use smartphones, desktop computers, and tablets to connect to the internet, link to social networks, and search for useful information for my work and that of the Cooperative. With the products made by Tay Bac Cooperative, we are all assigned different research tasks such as: Where are the raw materials? When is the best time to purchase? What are the methods of preliminary processing and deep processing? How to package and preserve goods? Where is the consumer market?... Thanks to useful information on the internet, we have improved our own understanding and come to investment choices with a very high consensus among the Tay Bac Cooperative.

Taking us to visit the cooperative's processing line with nearly a dozen dryers and fermenters with quite complicated operating buttons, Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen Linh added: Currently, the market for machinery serving processing technology is very diverse with many different types, prices vary greatly. Thanks to the rich information on the internet, we have chosen to invest in the most suitable technological machinery for our needs and capabilities; even, there are some component equipment that can be self-processed, we searched for information to make ourselves; avoiding unnecessary waste in purchasing investment while achieving high efficiency. We, Tay Bac Cooperative, hope that, under the attention of investment orientation, support of the State and the development of Son La agriculture, our Cooperative will have many more OCOP products of good quality, low cost, large output to contribute to promoting Son La's production chain to new successes.

According to: trangtraiviet.danviet.vn