The young man spent billions of dong to catch a shrimp that crawled into a bamboo tube.

A series of failures

Mr. Truong Thanh Hien (37 years old, residing in Cam Le district) used to have a job with a salary of 30-40 million VND/month in Gia Lai . But because of his passion for entrepreneurship, Mr. Hien quit his job, dreaming of returning to his hometown to get rich.

Chàng trai bỏ cả tỷ đồng để bắt con tôm chui vào ống tre - 1 — Mr. Truong Thanh Hien returned to his hometown to start a business with the idea of serving meatballs in bamboo tubes (Photo: Hoai Son).

Mr. Hien recounted that in 2018, he returned to Da Nang with only 800,000 dong in his pocket, having previously lost 2 billion dong investing in Laos. At that time, he ventured into entrepreneurship by creating an e-commerce website that provided information on traditional medicine, but few people were interested. The project only lasted a short time before going bankrupt because... he ran out of money to maintain it.

To support his family, he tried his hand at small-scale trading, but once again found it "meaningless" and decided to stop. After three failures, he was discouraged but still decided to find a new path for himself.

Chàng trai bỏ cả tỷ đồng để bắt con tôm chui vào ống tre - 2 — The patties have an eye-catching pink color and are shaped inside bamboo tubes (Photo: Hoai Son).

Being from a coastal region, he was always concerned about how to add more value to shrimp, and that's how the idea of making shrimp patties came to him.

He searched high and low for a teacher to learn how to make shrimp patties, but no one would teach him, so he learned to make beef patties instead. It took him four months to make his first product.

At this time, recognizing that bamboo is a strength of Vietnam, and wanting to associate the image of bamboo with the culinary culture of his homeland, he decided to experiment with stuffing beef sausage into bamboo tubes.

But once again, he failed because he didn't know how to choose the right size bamboo tube; when he poured the meat into the tube, it soured and spoiled.

Mr. Hien tinkered with a solution: turning the bamboo tubes upside down to allow water to drain out, preventing the patties from becoming soggy. After successfully making beef and pork patties, he decided to return to his original goal: making shrimp patties. However, after investing 200 million VND, the first batches of shrimp patties were unsuccessful; the shrimp meat separated inside the bamboo tubes and did not bind together to form patties.

Chàng trai bỏ cả tỷ đồng để bắt con tôm chui vào ống tre - 3 — Bamboo, being a natural material, is safe for packaging sausage (Photo: Hoai Son).

Even at his most discouraged moment, he tried one more time mixing shrimp with some sausage, and surprisingly, it worked. "No words can describe the overwhelming happiness I felt at that moment," Hien confided.

The aspiration to bring Quang Nam's specialties to the larger market.

Most of the steps in making shrimp patties in bamboo tubes are done manually at Mr. Hien's workshop, except for the step where a machine is used to grind the meat.

Chàng trai bỏ cả tỷ đồng để bắt con tôm chui vào ống tre - 4 — Bamboo is boiled in hot water and carefully inspected before being used to make the meatballs (Photo: Hoai Son).

Bamboo tube sausage was created with a focus on handcrafted production using eco-friendly ingredients, as the company personally sources reputable bamboo tubes from various locations and boils them in hot water to ensure the elimination of bacteria that could affect product quality.

In addition, he carefully selects a reputable supplier for the shrimp. According to him, Vietnam is a major shrimp exporter, so making shrimp paste will create a new product and boost the development of the shrimp farming industry.

Chàng trai bỏ cả tỷ đồng để bắt con tôm chui vào ống tre - 5 — The sausage is sealed with a layer of aluminum foil at the mouth of the bamboo tube for preservation (Photo: Hoai Son).

Currently, the factory's annual revenue is approximately 2 billion VND, providing employment for 10 workers with stable incomes.

The products are certified safe for consumption and supplied to markets in Binh Duong, Quang Ngai, Quang Nam, Da Nang, etc. His next goal is to apply for Cocimo shrimp paste to be included in the OCOP program (One Commune One Product) and expand the market further.

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