Growing wild starfruit trees, turning them into a specialty of Soc Trang, gives jobs to the villagers and good income.

The Ca Na tree is a wild plant or is planted along rivers and canals in the Mekong Delta, with little economic efficiency, and is processed into a snack. However, this wild plant has helped Mr. Ngo Tuan Thanh in Ward 7, Soc Trang City, Soc Trang Province earn 100 million VND/month, creating better jobs and income for farmers.

Wild fruit becomes a specialty of sweet and sour pickled star fruit

The star apple tree used to grow wild, but later it was planted by people in many localities in the Mekong Delta along rivers and canals.

When the star fruit is ripe, it is harvested to be processed into very typical sweet and sour snacks such as candied star fruit (some places call it candied star fruit), star fruit soaked in salt and chili.

Anh nông dân Sóc Trăng — Seedless star apple of Mr. Ngo Tuan Thanh in Ward 7, Soc Trang City, Soc Trang Province. Photo: HX

The popular snack associated with many people's childhoods has a very attractive blend of sour, sweet, salty, and spicy flavors, with no astringent taste when not cooked, or if there is any, it is slightly astringent.

However, due to the lack of concentration and small quantity of planting, people often only process dishes for family use. If they sell, the quantity is small and the preservation time is not long.

In the case of Mr. Ngo Tuan Thanh in Ward 7, Soc Trang City, Soc Trang Province, it is different. Thanks to this type of tree, after deducting expenses, he earned about 100 million VND in profit in just 1 month.

Sharing with reporters about his method, Mr. Thanh said that he did not major in agriculture , but had a passion for fruit trees, wanting to turn a cheap snack from the Mekong Delta into a specialty known to many consumers, with the highest quality.

Since 2020, he has started making sweet and sour pickled star fruit to sell when his family's star fruit garden is in full fruit. It is known that at this time, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, most of the star fruit consumption is facing many difficulties and obstacles. In the garden (more than 120 star fruit trees are planted on an area of about 7,000 m2), a lot of fruit has fallen.

To make sweet and sour pickled star fruit, he boldly spent hundreds of millions of dong to invest in machinery to have delicious products that can be preserved for a long time without affecting the quality of the product as well as spent a lot of effort researching the market.

"Realizing that customer demand for my products is very high, I have spent hundreds of millions to buy equipment and machinery to create long-lasting carambola products without affecting the quality," said Mr. Thanh.

However, at first, when introduced to the provincial market, the quantity of products consumed was not as expected due to the high selling price (processing costs were higher than the traditional method).

To overcome the immediate difficulties, realizing that he could not compete on price, Mr. Thanh used social networks to promote his products and boldly opened a store to introduce the products in Can Tho City. Thanks to his perseverance, from a few boxes of sweet and sour pickled star fruit sold each month, Mr. Thanh increased the number to 50-100 boxes. From there, it motivated him to continue to improve the quality and quantity of his products.

Applying science and technology to create exclusive products such as seedless carambola

Delighted with the initial results, Mr. Thanh continued to improve the product to give customers the most satisfying experience possible by researching a way to separate the seeds. It took him more than 2 years to make seedless carambola.

Mr. Thanh said: "The seed separation of the carambola must be done by machine. To make this machine, I had to improve it through many versions, fail many times, and had to ask an engineer to do it."

According to Mr. Thanh, at first, he made a rather crude seed separator, which took a lot of time for workers to prepare. With the current seed separator, the above drawback has been overcome, and the resulting carambola has a more beautiful appearance. This is the first carambola seed separator on the market, helping him create an exclusive product.

Introducing the technical process, he said that fresh star fruit (just harvested, frozen for no more than 6 hours) when arriving at the family workshop is put into a seed separator, then washed, marinated with sugar, salt and frozen. By doing this, the seed-separated salted star fruit has a beautiful green color, still has the familiar sour, sweet taste and is not astringent.

When someone places an order, Mr. Thanh will package the product and ship it out quickly within the day. It is known that the product can be kept in the refrigerator for more than a month, and in the freezer for up to 12 months.

During processing, star apple must go through a process of removing pesticides even though this is a completely natural plant with strong vitality, without the intervention of pesticides, to ensure that the product reaching consumers must be the best.

Currently, seedless canarium is sold all over the country, with more than 2 tons/month. With the selling price of 80,000-90,000 VND/500 gram box, he earns about 100 million VND/month.

Mr. Thanh is looking for ways to expand the market in the North and Central regions. In addition to the above products, he also makes dried star fruit and seedless star fruit. At the same time, he is researching to make handicrafts from star fruit seeds.

According to traditional medicine, star apple has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, supporting the treatment of insomnia, cough, balancing cholesterol... With the above method, Mr. Thanh has helped this cheap fruit become a branded specialty, contributing to promoting the cuisine of the river region to a large number of domestic and foreign diners.

Source: https://danviet.vn/trong-cay-ca-na-ra-qua-dai-bien-thanh-dac-san-soc-trang-lang-tren-xom-duoi-co-viec-thu-nhap-tot-20250219084045433.htm