Do Thi Huong Thao, Founder, CEO of VinaStraws Joint Stock Company: Persevere with the belief in green living
Four years of starting a business are four years for Do Thi Huong Thao to endure losses, determined to nurture the 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. |
Solution to replace plastic straws
Plastic is considered a threat to the planet. Products as seemingly small as plastic straws are 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 reporters from Investment Newspaper.
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, guaranteed to decompose within 3 months.
Compared to paper straws, VinaStraws cereal straws have the advantage of being edible and 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.... In the first year of establishment, the Company exported 8 tons of cereal straws with a total value of about 400 million VND to a customer in Germany. To date, VinaStraws' foreign market has expanded to Korea, Czechia, England, Switzerland... 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 promote exports and continue to promote and conquer domestic customers, striving for export turnover of 7 billion VND/year and revenue from the market. domestically reached 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 and tapioca starch and can help businesses lower product costs.
Currently, Vinastraws cereal straws are priced at 300 - 1.000 VND/product, depending on the size of each type.
Nurture your entrepreneurial dream
"Four years later, we are still suffering losses," CEO Do Thi Huong Thao said about her not-so-easy start-up journey.
Before that, Huong Thao worked in the field of import and export. Once by chance, she saw a video of a sea turtle suffering from a plastic straw stuck in its nose, and she became extremely concerned about the issue of environmental protection.
With the support of family and friends, in 2019, Huong Thao founded VinaStraws, with a production line located in Hai Duong. As a "professional" 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 for 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 had low productivity. large loss rate. Huong Thao again found every way to manage, raising a large amount of money to invest in a new line, which only needs 3 workers to operate, with a loss rate of 10 - 15%, to meet export needs.
Cereal straws are a very potential product, but in reality, VinaStraws' revenue is still not enough to offset costs. From the end of 2022 to 2023, many key personnel in the Company decided to quit. Ms. Huong Thao herself also struggled many times, faced with the choice: stop or continue. In the end, the belief in a product that is beneficial to the environment kept her going.
“Even though we are losing money, looking at it positively, VinaStraws still has many new customers; The number of orders from old customers is still increasing, although not much," the founder of 8x expressed.
To keep her dream of starting a business alive, Huong Thao maintains a number of outside jobs, and also sells handicrafts, dried agricultural products... to have more income. She said, looking more broadly, not only VinaStraws, but many other start-ups with products such as grass straws, paper straws... are also having to actively do other jobs, to be able to continue on the path they have taken. dun.
In Vietnam today, because of profit factors, many restaurants and cafes still prioritize using plastic straws, but VinaStraws CEO believes that in the future, things will change in a more positive direction, when customers In the country, especially the younger generation, they are starting to change their consumption habits, towards environmentally friendly products. Around 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 Canada University. That same year, the start-up won a Special Prize at the contest "Connecting start-ups - investors, mentors" - one of the start-up support programs under the Project to Support Innovative Start-up Ecosystem country by 2025 (Project 844).
