Selling balut eggs to 'tech giants', old farmer earns 1.5 billion VND per year

There was a time when unsold eggs piled up like mountains.

As one of the 100 Outstanding Vietnamese Farmers in 2022, old farmer Nguyen Van Mui in Tan Lieu commune (Yen Dung, Bac Giang ) happily said that before becoming a billionaire raising laying ducks in the low-lying fields, his entrepreneurial journey was also full of hardships. There were times when he lost everything because of ducks and pigs, there were times when duck eggs were piled up like mountains and he didn't know where to sell them.

But now, the duck eggs produced are sold to companies, earning hundreds of millions of dong in profit every month.

He said that his hometown Tan Lieu commune is a low-lying area, where rice can only be grown once a year, and is unstable, with some years being profitable and some years being unprofitable. In return, the fields are flooded all year round, so there are many fish and shrimp. From June to November every year, he and his wife go out into the low-lying areas to catch fish and shrimp.

Calling himself a “fish killer”, there were nights when he caught 200kg of fish and shrimp. However, after more than 5 years of working hard, he fell ill and became emaciated, so he had to quit his job.

Mr. Nguyen Van Mui (first from left) attends the conference on agriculture, rural areas in Hanoi (Photo: Khanh Nguyen)

In 2000, he decided to invest in building a 1km internal road to be awarded a contract for 3ha of rice fields, with the aim of opening a livestock farm. A few years later, the road was completed, and he started raising 1,000 ducks and dozens of sows. Not long after that, foot-and-mouth disease killed all his pigs. He and his wife were left penniless and deeply in debt.

The whole family packed up and went to the South to make a living, he even went to Taiwan to work as a worker.

In 2012, after returning from Taiwan, he spent 100 million VND on the available land to build a barn and buy 2,000 laying ducks to raise. While selling eggs everywhere, he learned the craft of hatching balut eggs.

In 2013, he borrowed money from his relatives, bought an incubator and decided to expand his duck flock. Because he realized that the market for balut and commercial eggs had a lot of potential, especially in Bac Giang province where industrial parks were booming and food demand was high.

Accordingly, he hired people to transport thousands of trucks of dirt to the low-lying fields to convert into livestock farms. From 2013 to 2017, he invested 1 billion VND each year to expand the farm.

However, instead of raising laying ducks in the traditional way, Mr. Mui chose to raise ducks in a bio-safe way with 3,000 ducks in two areas. Each area is separated by walls and mesh fences, with its own entrance gate. The cages are equipped with clean water tanks, specialized feeding troughs, biological bedding, and clean disinfection pits.

“I was afraid of failure and going broke again like before, so I calculated carefully and chose a biosafety farming method to produce high-quality eggs,” he shared. Thanks to this new way of thinking, Mr. Mui’s duck farm has made billions in profit, and has never had a year of loss.

At Mr. Mui's farm, there are up to 8,000 laying ducks alone (Photo: Khanh Nguyen)

In 2018, he expanded his flock of laying ducks to 8,000, and raised 2,000 more geese. Every day, he collects about 6,000 eggs. He incubates duck eggs, hatches ducklings, etc. In 2020, he established Tien Phat Cooperative, linking with 8 households to raise egg-laying ducks.

“Also in 2020, the Covid-19 epidemic caused me to lose billions of dollars, and I had a mountain of eggs piled up in my house and didn’t know where to sell them,” he said.

Tan Lieu was then the first commune in Bac Giang to have Covid-19 cases, so strict social distancing was imposed. At that time, Mr. Mui could not sell the eggs and had difficulty buying food for his ducks.

“I no longer incubate the eggs, but contact the commune and district to ask for a pass, and bring the duck eggs to donate to quarantine checkpoints, isolation areas, and industrial parks throughout the province and beyond,” he shared.

From those trips, he got orders to supply eggs to industrial zones and quarantine areas. Not only did he consume all of his family's eggs, he also contributed to consuming eggs for people in the commune.

Production linkage earns billions in profit

After the pandemic passed, trucks of duck eggs were distributed from his farm to everywhere. In 2022, thanks to stable egg prices, he earned an average of 120-130 million VND per month. That translates to a profit of about 1.5 billion VND per year.

To earn this billion-dollar profit, Mr. Mui signed a contract to sell eggs to Samsung Vietnam Company since 2019. In addition, he supplies eggs to many other businesses in the area.

“The eggs sold to Samsung alone are up to 15,000 eggs per day. They are supplied with about 450,000 eggs per month,” he said, adding that the eggs come from his family and members of the cooperative.

He raises animals with biosecurity, so the barn is always clean, ensuring food safety (Photo: Khanh Nguyen)

According to him, when signing contracts to supply eggs to businesses, he must ensure strict standards on food safety, strictly control diseases on the farm... In return, the biggest benefit is that prices are always stable regardless of fluctuations in the outside market.

This is also the reason why in recent years, livestock farmers have been struggling because feed prices have skyrocketed, the prices of chicken and egg products have plummeted, while he leisurely collects eggs every morning and sells them, earning a steady profit of hundreds of millions of dong each month.

“Whatever you raise or plant now, you have to look at the market. You can’t keep the habit of bringing whatever you have to the market like before. When you do something, you have to calculate the output for the product. Only then can you develop sustainably,” said Mr. Mui.

He and the cooperative now have loyal customers who are businesses. Therefore, the livestock farmers are all doing well and still earning high profits.

32 years of writing stories on the hill, old farmer San Diu earns billions of dong . On the hill garden, where the lychees are still in full bloom, old farmer San Diu enthusiastically tells the story of his 32-year journey of creating this specialty fruit. In the garden, there are many signs marking lychee trees that tourists have purchased for tens of millions of dong.

Source