From small pots of banh chung, cooked to serve her family and neighbors during Tet, Ms. Mai has gradually built a banh chung brand with her very unique name "Mai Beo", becoming a typical business model in the locality.
The meticulousness in each cake, combined with the systematic management knowledge gained from the project "Grow My Business - AMB", has helped her gradually expand the market and grow sustainably. Thanks to that journey, she has excellently achieved the 1st Prize in the 1st Business Development Award - an activity in the project program implemented by the Asia Foundation in collaboration with the Center for Women's Development Support.
Ms. Hoa Thi Mai (2nd from left) received the 1st Prize at the 1st Business Development Awards Ceremony in Hanoi.
It's never too late to start a business
Ms. Hoa Thi Mai (54 years old) is no stranger to cooking. Born into a rural family, wrapping banh chung during Tet is an indispensable part of her childhood memories. After getting married, she still maintained the habit of wrapping banh chung every Tet holiday for relatives and neighbors. By 2022, realizing the high demand of the market, she decided to try her hand at making banh chung to sell.
In 2022 - 2023, she only cooked a few dozen cakes each Tet holiday. Gradually, the quality of the cakes and their reputation made more and more customers come back. From only making cakes seasonally, Ms. Mai started to cook cakes all year round, accepting orders for weddings, ceremonies, birthdays, etc. A facility for wrapping and cooking banh chung called "Mai Beo" was established in early 2024 and has been maintained until now.
Unlike many places, Ms. Mai chose a sustainable path: making cakes by hand but ensuring food hygiene and safety, clean ingredients and traditional methods. The sticky rice is carefully selected, the mung beans are washed clean, the pork belly is fresh, the dong leaves are washed and hand-wiped one by one. The traditional firewood-fired cake cooking pot is designed to be airtight, retain heat well and still retain the characteristic flavor of the old banh chung.
"Making banh chung requires dedication. Each cake is carefully prepared from the selection of ingredients to the wrapping and cooking process. It cannot be done carelessly," Mai said calmly.
Learn to be a master – when business is more than just... baking
Despite her skills and delicious products, Ms. Mai encountered many difficulties when she wanted to expand her scale. Sales were unstable, and cost and material management was still manual. "I just did things based on my feelings, without taking notes or analyzing profits and losses, so even though I worked hard, I didn't know how much I made, what I lacked, and where I needed to invest," she shared.
Regarding capital, through the Women's Union and the lending group of Duoc Thuong village, Ms. Mai was introduced to the Fund for Supporting Low-Income Households for Economic Development (VietED) to borrow capital to develop her business. Regarding knowledge, she was introduced to the project "Growing My Business - AMB" by VietEd's credit officers. This was the first time she learned this knowledge in a systematic way and learned it online on her phone, Ms. Mai was very excited. She registered for the "Starting a Business" program. Here, she learned 3 groups of basic knowledge including: Skills on starting a business and business administration, Financial skills, Skills on the digital business environment. She is passionate about learning about business planning, cash flow management, identifying target customers, marketing, product pricing and branding.
"Before, I just thought that making delicious food was enough. But after the course, I understood that business requires strategy. I started to take clear notes, classify costs, manage seasonal ingredients, calculate depreciation... Everything gradually became methodical," she shared.
Ms. Mai was guided by VietEd's credit officer to participate in the study on the project's website.
Not only does it create a steady job for herself, during peak times like Tet, Ms. Mai also creates seasonal jobs for many people. Every full moon and new moon day, the facility produces several hundred square and long cakes, and during Tet, it increases 3-5 times. Revenue in 2024 increased significantly, with an average revenue of 30 million VND in the last months of the year. In November 2024, when we visited the banh chung facility, Ms. Mai excitedly said, "Thanks to knowing how to classify costs and plan cash flow, in recent months I have saved nearly 10% of raw material costs compared to before. The knowledge learned from the project has helped me create much more stable profits."
In addition to individual customers, she also has contracts with a number of businesses, mini supermarkets, and local women's associations to supply cakes according to pre-orders.
Thanks to the lessons learned from the project, Ms. Mai has learned how to do communication through social networks. She created a fanpage, posted on fanpage, zalo, took better product photos, and responded to customers promptly. Thanks to that, the number of online orders increased day by day.
Ms. Mai confided: "I used to think I was just a cook, now I am confident to be a business person. You don't have to do big things to learn. If you do small things correctly and systematically, you can still grow and succeed."
Ms. Mai shares her experience in participating in the project program at the 2nd Business Development Awards Ceremony
In the first award ceremony of the Business Development Award, Ms. Hoa Thi Mai was selected to receive the 1st Prize worth 10 million VND, becoming an inspirational role model for many other women who dare to start a business and are willing to learn to enrich themselves and their families.
"Grow My Business" – AMB – A Launchpad for Women Entrepreneurs to Take Steady Steps
The project is supported by The Asia Foundation (TAF) with funding from Visa and the Center for Women's Development (CWD) as the project owner with the goal of enhancing the capacity and supporting the development of women-owned, small, and micro enterprises, developing in Vietnam.
Through online courses on the website https://vietnam.accelerate-msme.com, the project equips women with knowledge about financial management, business, marketing, digital transformation, helping them to gradually grow their businesses and business households. In addition to providing knowledge, the project also provides other practical support for learners such as the Business Development Award or practical study tour programs. In addition to providing knowledge, the project also creates opportunities for learners like Ms. Mai to participate in trade promotion activities, introduce products and receive in-depth advice from experts on financial management and business in the digital environment.
Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/xay-dung-thuong-hieu-tu-noi-banh-chung-truyen-thong-20250530162907762.htm
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