Do Thi Huong Thao, Founder, CEO of VinaStraws Joint Stock Company: Persistent with the belief in green living
Four years of starting a business were four years of Do Thi Huong Thao bearing losses, determined to nurture her dream of starting a business with the belief in sustainable green living through the VinaStraws straw product made from cereals.
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| CEO Do Thi Huong Thao. |
Alternative to plastic straws
Plastic is considered a threat to the planet. A seemingly small product like a plastic straw is causing significant consequences for the environment. World statistics show that of the 8 million tons of plastic dumped into the ocean each year, 4% comes from straws.
“We only have one planet and right now, we need to work together to protect it. Small actions can make a huge difference,” CEO Do Thi Huong Thao shared with Dau Tu Newspaper reporters.
With the desire to contribute to the journey of reducing plastic waste in the world in general and Vietnam in particular, in 2019, Ms. Huong Thao and the VinaStraws team launched the cereal straw product, 100% made from rice flour and cassava flour, ensuring the ability to decompose within 3 months.
Compared to paper straws, VinaStraws cereal straws have the advantage of being edible and can be soaked in water for up to 2 hours without deformation.
The founder of VinaStraws said that the product is trusted and used by many cafes, hotels, and high-end resorts in Hanoi , Ho Chi Minh City, Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, etc. In the first year of its establishment, the company exported 8 tons of cereal straws with a total value of about 400 million VND to a customer in Germany. Up to now, VinaStraws' foreign market has expanded to Korea, Czech Republic, England, Switzerland, etc. The company is also actively negotiating to bring VinaStraws cereal straws to the US market.
The immediate goal that CEO Huong Thao and the VinaStraws team set is to boost exports and continue to promote and conquer domestic customers, striving for an export turnover of 7 billion VND/year and a revenue from the domestic market of 3 billion VND/year. VinaStraws is also actively researching a new material to produce straws, still aiming to protect the environment, but capable of replacing rice flour, cassava flour and can help businesses reduce product costs.
Currently, Vinastraws cereal straws are priced at 300 - 1,000 VND/product, depending on the size of each type.
Nurture the dream of starting a business
“For four years, we are still losing money,” CEO Do Thi Huong Thao said about her difficult start-up journey.
Previously, Huong Thao worked in the import-export sector. Once, she accidentally saw a video of a sea turtle in pain because a plastic straw was stuck in its nose. She was deeply concerned about environmental protection.
With the support of family and friends, in 2019, Huong Thao founded VinaStraws, with a production line located in Hai Duong. As an “amateur” in the industry, Huong Thao cannot remember how many batches of defective straws she had to throw away, to find the final formula for the product.
Even in terms of technical issues, due to lack of experience, the VinaStraws team spent billions of dong investing in a production line, but in the end had to cancel it, because this line used a lot of workers, had low productivity, and a high loss rate. Huong Thao tried every way to find a way to find a large sum of money to invest in a new line, which only needed 3 workers to operate, with a loss rate of 10 - 15%, meeting export needs.
Cereal straws are a very potential product, but in reality, VinaStraws' revenue is still not enough to cover costs. From the end of 2022 to 2023, many key personnel in the Company decided to give up. Ms. Huong Thao herself struggled many times, standing between the choice: to stop or continue. In the end, the belief in a product that is beneficial to the environment kept her.
“Although we are losing money, on the positive side, VinaStraws still has many new customers; the number of orders from old customers is still increasing, although not much,” the 8x founder expressed.
To nurture her dream of starting a business, Huong Thao maintains a number of side jobs, while also selling handicrafts, dried agricultural products, etc. to earn more income. She said that, looking at the bigger picture, not only VinaStraws, but many other start-ups with products such as grass straws, paper straws, etc. are also having to actively do other jobs, to have enough strength to continue on the path they have taken.
In Vietnam today, due to profit factors, many restaurants and cafes still prioritize the use of plastic straws, but the CEO of VinaStraws believes that in the future, things will change in a more positive direction, when domestic customers, especially the younger generation, begin to change their consumption habits, towards environmentally friendly products. In the world, the European Union (EU) and many countries have banned or restricted single-use plastic products.
“Rice straws cannot completely replace plastic straws, but certainly, this product will become more and more popular. I believe that VinaStraws rice straws are capable of going from Vietnam to the whole world,” founder Do Thi Huong Thao affirmed.
In 2021, VinaStraws won the Innovative Social Business Concept Award in Round 2 of the Social Impact Business Competition organized by HEC Montréal University, Canada. In the same year, the start-up won the Special Prize in the “Connecting Start-ups - Investors, Mentors” Competition - one of the start-up support programs under the National Innovation and Startup Ecosystem Support Project to 2025 (Project 844).
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