Craft villages are bustling with activity, preparing for Tet.

While the Tet atmosphere has not yet appeared on urban streets, in craft villages, the work of preparing goods and food is already bustling.

The kitchens are always on fire

The closer to Lunar New Year, the more cooperatives and craft villages in Thai Nguyen province actively promote the production of goods to serve consumers, especially products with high demand during Tet with the criteria of ensuring quality, diversifying product designs and stabilizing prices.

In the last days of the year, Bo Dau banh chung village (Co Lung commune, Phu Luong district, Thai Nguyen) is busy preparing for Tet. Every household mobilizes 3-5 more workers to keep up with production progress. According to Ms. Tran Thi Thu Huong, a villager, each bundle of wild dong leaves after being imported from Bac Kan province will be washed and dried.

The secret to making Bo Dau's famously delicious banh chung is carefully selected ingredients, tightly wrapped cakes and boiled beets. Photo: Pham Hieu.

Other ingredients are also carefully selected. The Lychee sticky rice grains must be even, plump, and free of impurities, grown in the Phu Luong and Dinh Hoa regions. The yellow-heart green beans must be grade 1. The fragrant roasted peppercorns must be crushed and mixed with the right amount of spices. The pork filling must meet the criteria of being fresh and delicious. To preserve the traditional features and ensure food safety, the banh chung of the people is tied with strings made from giang trees, not plastic strings.

“The secret to making Bo Dau banh chung so delicious is the carefully selected ingredients, the tightly wrapped banh chung and the boiled water. Another special feature is that the well water in the Bo Dau area is very suitable, when used to boil banh chung it will give a beautiful green color,” Ms. Huong shared.

Promoting the strengths of the craft village, since 2021, Bo Dau Banh Chung Traditional Cooperative has been established with 8 members, specializing in producing Banh Chung specialty with 3-star OCOP certification. On the occasion of Lunar New Year this year, the family of Ms. Nguyen Bich Lien, Director of Bo Dau Banh Chung Traditional Cooperative, received orders from customers for about 20,000 cakes.

"Despite the large quantity, cooperative members always remind each other to ensure quality and not increase prices compared to normal days," Ms. Lien affirmed.

Similar to Bo Dau banh chung village, at Viet Cuong vermicelli cooperative (Hoa Thuong town, Dong Hy district), the production atmosphere is also very bustling to meet the demand of the Tet market. The cooperative's 300m2 workshop area is almost full of bundles of cellophane noodles. The cutting, weight checking, packaging and labeling departments are all working non-stop.

Viet Cuong Vermicelli Cooperative is boosting production to meet market demand for the 2024 Lunar New Year. Photo: Pham Hieu.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Ba, Director of Viet Cuong Vermicelli Cooperative, to ensure production capacity, the Cooperative has invested in an additional centrifugal flour filter and some other equipment with a total value of nearly 1 billion VND. The Cooperative also proactively stored raw materials about 2 months before Tet and mobilized dozens of seasonal workers, working even in the evening. Regarding packaging, the Cooperative has also made many improvements to ensure aesthetics and better suit customer tastes.

“In addition to traditional sales channels, this year, Viet Cuong Vermicelli Cooperative has expanded its product introduction and promotion through social networks and e-commerce platforms. Thanks to that, the number of orders has increased by about 20-25%. During the upcoming Lunar New Year, the Cooperative is expected to supply the market with hundreds of tons of vermicelli,” Mr. Ba informed.

Diversified distribution types

With the view of building long-term reputation, Hao Dat Tea Cooperative (Tan Cuong Commune, Thai Nguyen City) determined that the products serving the upcoming Lunar New Year must be beautiful in design, ensure quality and have suitable prices. In addition to increasing output, the Cooperative also flexibly sells and meets the specific needs of each customer group in terms of packaging design, product packaging specifications for gifts, etc.

“Along with traditional customer groups, keeping up with the digital transformation trend, promoting product introduction and promotion on social networking platforms has helped cooperatives and craft villages in the province have many new orders,” Ms. Dao Thanh Hao, Director of Hao Dat Tea Cooperative analyzed and said that accelerating production to serve market demand during Tet will help units increase revenue and workers have more income.

Hao Dat Tea Cooperative determined that products for the upcoming Lunar New Year must be beautiful in design, ensure quality and have suitable prices. Photo: Pham Hieu.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade of Thai Nguyen province, currently, the retail distribution system in the province includes 140 markets and dozens of supermarkets, shopping malls, and thousands of food stores. In order to ensure the supply of goods for the 2024 Lunar New Year, the Department of Industry and Trade, together with departments, branches, People's Committees of districts, cities and enterprises in the province have coordinated to implement many solutions to ensure supply-demand balance and stabilize the market during the 2024 Lunar New Year.

In recent times, manufacturing and trading enterprises have also actively participated in market stabilization activities, organized trade promotion activities, actively responded to the campaign "Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese goods", organized mobile Vietnamese goods sales sessions in rural areas, remote and isolated areas.

In addition, businesses, agents, and retail stores have well prepared essential goods and Tet goods to supply early and fully to people in rural, mountainous, remote and isolated areas with guaranteed quality and reasonable prices.

Before, during and after the Lunar New Year, the Department of Industry and Trade of Thai Nguyen province has planned to coordinate with relevant units to strengthen food safety inspections for enterprises, food production and trading establishments in the area. At the same time, strengthen control of smuggling, trade fraud, counterfeit goods, counterfeit goods, goods violating intellectual property rights...

Source: https://nongsanviet.nongnghiep.vn/cac-lang-nghe-do-lua-hoi-ha-chuan-bi-hang-tet-d374375.html