Trade promotion officers learn about the product.

Find a new path

After graduating with a degree in biotechnology from Hue University of Science in 2018, Pham Ngoc Anh Phuong followed her brother to Ho Chi Minh City to start a career. Just six months after joining Saite Power Source Co., Ltd. – a company specializing in battery manufacturing – Phuong was appointed Head of the Laboratory - IQC Department and later Deputy Head of Quality Control. The promising career path seemed poised to keep the young engineer there, but after only three years, Phuong decided to return to Hue, much to the surprise of her friends.

According to Phuong, every time she called her parents, hearing her mother ask, "When are you coming home?" made her think. "There are three siblings in the family, but we all established our careers in Ho Chi Minh City. The worry that my parents would be alone when they were sick bothered me terribly," Phuong said. With the encouragement of her older brother, Phuong decided to leave Ho Chi Minh City, where she had a stable income, to return to Hue and find a new path.

Returning home with a jumble of ideas, the first thing Phuong thought of was lotus, and she chose lotus tea as her starting point. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, disrupting shipping orders to Ho Chi Minh City. As a result, the 300 million VND Phuong had saved and borrowed to invest in machinery was completely lost.

After this failure, Phuong shifted her focus to drying fruits, pomelo peels, ginger, etc., but this was also unsuccessful due to difficulties in finding buyers. Phuong then continued with a model of household beekeeping, partnering with people in A Luoi to develop natural wild beekeeping. After more than two years of investment, the business has partnered with 16 households, developing 400 bee colonies, with a projected honey production of over 1 ton by 2025. The partners support the sale of all the products produced. Along with the household beekeeping model, Phuong also has many plans of her own, and instant salted coffee is one of them.

Tell the story of Hue's salted coffee.

Phuong's connection with instant salted coffee "made in Hue" began during a trip to Hue with friends from Ho Chi Minh City. While enjoying a cup of salted coffee on Dang Thai Than Street, a friend shared: "I've drunk a lot of salted coffee, but only now do I know that it originates from Hue; the flavor is very different." From then on, he harbored the intention of bringing "authentic Hue" salted coffee to Ho Chi Minh City. However, the question of how to transport it while preserving its flavor troubled him. And the question, "Why doesn't Hue have instant salted coffee?" spurred Phuong to research and find a formula for instant salted coffee that would preserve the authentic Hue flavor for his friends far away.

With salted coffee, the biggest challenge was balancing the saltiness of the salt and the creaminess of the cream without losing the coffee flavor. Many nights, Phương toiled with dozens of recipes, but failed because the salt she usually used didn't meet the requirements. By chance, she found a salt-producing facility in the ancient village of Phước Tích. After more than a dozen trials, the instant salted coffee recipe finally achieved the desired flavor. To reduce the pressure of investing in machinery and equipment in the initial stages, Phương contacted a third-party company to produce the coffee according to her recipe.

After four months of testing, the instant salted coffee product took shape. Phuong continuously tested the market, starting by inviting relatives and acquaintances to try it and provide feedback to refine the formula and perfect the product packaging. By April 2025, Alufa instant salted coffee officially launched on the market at Aeon Mall Hue.

The product existed, but zero market experience was the barrier to its marketing. At this point, Phuong and her team had to go door-to-door to specialty stores, markets, and small supermarkets, only to receive negative responses. The product was too new, the market hadn't accepted it yet, and putting it on the shelves would take up space, create debt, and not generate cash flow – these were the concerns of small traders when marketing the product. Understanding this, Phuong changed her strategy from selling to consignment, being flexible in her sales policies and offering product samples to create a market effect. Simultaneously, she regularly visited and supported them to gradually build trust and persuade small traders to accept putting the product on their shelves.

“This was when I wanted to give up the most because market problems are not like research in a laboratory. Every shake of the head was a moment of self-doubt. Luckily, I had the support of FoodMap – a technology company specializing in connecting farmers with consumers – and the assistance of many people in the e-commerce and marketing fields. After nearly a month of launching, many orders on the e-commerce platform started to be placed, the return order rate was also very high, and the stores that the company had previously entrusted with consignment also received orders,” Phuong recounted.

In the southern region, FoodMap has implemented quite effective distribution channels. Therefore, Phuong only needs to focus on the markets of Hue, Da Nang, and the northern provinces and cities. Market surveys show that people in the North are very fond of instant coffee, and Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Quang Ninh are becoming the main markets for focused distribution channels. After a period of perseverance, Alufa's instant salted coffee has partnered with 5 major distributors in the North; FoodMap has exclusive distribution rights in the South, and more than 120 stores in Hue and Da Nang are acting as agents for the product. In addition, Alufa has joined the Kinh Do Specialty Products ecosystem with the desire to take its instant salted coffee product further.

“Even now, many people still don't know that salted coffee was created by people from Hue. Therefore, in our product design, we pay special attention to the symbolic images of Hue and Hue culture in each product so that when customers hold it in their hands, they can immediately recognize it as a product ‘made in Hue.’ And one day, Hue’s instant salted coffee will be available in cafes across the country and exported to other countries. So that wherever customers are, they can feel a little bit of Hue in a cup of instant salted coffee,” Phuong said with a gentle smile.

Instant salted coffee is part of the ecosystem of Alufa Technology and Trading Co., Ltd., renowned for its forest honey brand and beekeeping project developed by Pham Ngoc Anh Phuong and her colleagues in A Luoi in 2023. The name Alufa is also closely associated with the land and people of A Luoi, providing sustainable livelihoods for the local people, protecting the environment, and caring for the health of consumers with the essence of the A Luoi mountains and forests.


Hoang Loan

Source: https://huengaynay.vn/kinh-te/dua-ca-phe-muoi-hue-di-muon-noi-162462.html