A woman who left a 16-year post as a regional women's-union official and moved to her husband's hometown has processed soursop (mãng cầu xiêm, graviola) grown beneath coconut groves into tea and jam, and made it all the way to regular exports to Australia. This dispatch from the southern Mekong Delta embodies, in its smallest unit, the trend of not shipping fresh fruit cheaply but 'processing it and selling the maker's story along with it.' The figures—a scale of 7 tonnes a month, 15 hectares of partnered farmland, and up to 1,000 boxes across one or two shipments each month—make a realistic reference point for Japanese dried-fruit and dried-vegetable OEMs weighing a small-lot overseas push.
From women's-union official to processor: the origin of Minh Chau
The central figure is Mai Duy Hanh, born in 1985. After serving 16 years as a women's-union official in the Giong Rieng district of Kien Giang province, she left the post in 2024 and moved with her husband to Tra Vinh (now Tra Vinh ward, Vinh Long province). What she set her sights on there was the soursop grown by local farmers. She began producing tea in May 2024, and in December 2025 established her own company, Công ty TNHH Minh Châu Trà Vinh (Minh Chau Tra Vinh). As its head, she ties together everything from raw-material sourcing to processing and export.
The flagship products are two: soursop tea and jam. The tea earned three stars in 2024 and the jam in 2025 under Vietnam's regional-product certification scheme 'OCOP.' What makes this case stand out is that it was not a large, well-credentialed company but a single individual who moved into the area, launched a processed-goods brand within a few years, and even secured an export contract.
Soursop beneath the coconut grove, and hand-roasting over a wood fire
Worth attention are the growing and processing methods. The soursop is raised not in a dedicated orchard but by 'intercropping'—planting it beneath the canopy of existing coconut groves. By coexisting with coconut on the low, wet land of the Mekong Delta, the design secures raw material without clearing new farmland. The partnered growing area is about 15 hectares, and the fresh fruit the company buys each month comes to roughly 7 tonnes.
What is distinctive in the processing is that it does not rely entirely on machine drying but combines traditional hand-roasting over a wood fire (sao trà). Ms. Hanh explains that she 'uses machine and hand roasting together,' which suggests an aim of preserving the tea's aroma, often lost with full mechanization. Choosing an intermediate form that is neither fully industrial nor fully handcrafted becomes the source of the added value discussed below.
The workforce is centered on women and Khmer residents. Many of the farmers who supply the raw material are also Khmer producers, so the processing business directly feeds into creating a livelihood for the area's ethnic minority.
The balance of export and domestic, and the figures that could be verified
Here is the shape of the exports. With the Australian partner, the company has a three-year exclusive contract, shipping at a pace of one or two consignments a month, up to 1,000 boxes per consignment. Domestic sales cannot be ignored either: at present roughly 80% is offline, over-the-counter distribution, and the company is said to be at the stage of expanding its online channels.
| Item | What has been confirmed |
|---|---|
| Partnered growing area | About 15 hectares |
| Monthly fresh-fruit purchase volume | About 7 tonnes |
| Export destination / contract | Australia / three-year exclusive contract |
| Export frequency / volume | One or two consignments a month, up to 1,000 boxes per consignment |
| OCOP certification | Tea = three stars (2024) / jam = three stars (2025) |
| Domestic channels | About 80% offline, online expanding |
Monetary amounts, revenue and unit prices could not be clearly corroborated in any primary or secondary reporting, so this article deliberately does not touch them. What can be read is a picture of turnover: 'processing 7 tonnes of raw material a month and shipping one or two consignments a month steadily.' It can be understood as a model that fixes the exit by contract and then cycles small lots regularly, rather than mass production.
How it is received locally and in the industry
Local reception seems to gather less around the success or failure of exports than around 'employment' and 'story.' Several Vietnamese reports frame the business in the context of building livelihoods (sinh kế) for Khmer residents, shining the spotlight on 'who makes it and how' rather than on the fruit itself.
From an industry standpoint, because soursop as fresh fruit spoils quickly and does not suit long-distance transport, processing it into tea or jam can be rated as a rational choice for 'turning it into a long-keeping form and carrying it far.' In the Mekong Delta, with the same idea, there is also a move to formally export organic-certified coconut nectar (mật hoa dừa) to Australia, and behind this lies a region-wide trend of 'not shipping unprocessed goods cheaply but creating an exit with processed products.'
At the same time, a scale of up to 1,000 boxes a month is small compared with major local export companies. For that very reason, one can also view the defensive design of 'fixing the buyer with a three-year exclusive contract' as working well.
What it suggests for Japanese dried-fruit and dried-vegetable OEMs
From this case, processing and OEM people on the Japanese side can draw out three points.
The first is the idea of assembling raw-material sourcing not as a 'dedicated plantation' but as 'intercropping on an existing crop plus a partnership contract.' The design of planting soursop beneath coconut groves holds down the initial cost of newly securing land and growers, while giving the strength of being able to tell the raw material's origin as a story. The suggestion is that when a Japanese OEM pulls raw material from an emerging region, there are cases where looking for an item that can ride on existing local farming gets things off the ground faster than demanding a 'dedicated single-item field.'
The second is making the processing method itself into a story of differentiation. The choice to keep hand-roasting over a wood fire is inferior to machine drying in efficiency, but it creates a value that can be put into words—'the extra effort of preserving aroma.' This is an idea that applies to the Japanese side's processing of dried pear and vegetables as well, where differences in process such as drying temperature, drying method and time can be turned directly into the product's narrative (conveying the difference in process while avoiding assertions of figures or claims of efficacy).
The third is the order of exit design. Minh Chau does not scale up first and then look for buyers; it fixes the exit first with a three-year exclusive contract and builds a turnover of 7 tonnes and one or two consignments a month to match. When a small Japanese D2C or OEM partners with an overseas buyer, a design of 'making only as much as you can sell out' curbs inventory risk better than 'selling out as much as you can make.'
The market ripple: a chain of regions that 'sell the story along with it'
What keeps this from being merely an individual success story is that it is one cross-section of structural change under way in the Mekong Delta. A mangosteen region's effort to attach QR codes to aged old trees and sell the grower's story along with them, and a cinnamon region's move to stop selling bark cheaply and shift to high-value products such as essential oil, point in the same direction as Minh Chau's processed-goods export. All step down from 'shipping unprocessed primary commodities cheaply' and go after unit price through processing, story and traceability. The brand strategy of a Mekong region that does not sell raw material and A cinnamon region that quit selling bark and takes on the world with essential oil Read together with these cases, it becomes clear that value-adding in Vietnamese regions is advancing not as isolated points but across whole areas.
For the Japanese import and processing side, the more such a region can 'speak to the raw material's provenance,' the better suited it is to joint development of processed and branded goods. At the same time, there are phases when the price of fresh fruit collapses in the region, creating windows to secure processing material cheaply. The situation of fruit prices collapsing in Vietnamese regions Given this, a two-track approach—securing raw material during oversupply phases and partnering with regions that have a story for processed goods—is likely the realistic one.
Practical information and related links
Soursop (graviola) is a distinctly tropical fruit, and because long-distance transport as fresh fruit is difficult, what circulates overseas is mainly processed forms such as tea, jam, frozen puree and dried product. If the Japanese side considers handling it, putting the processed product's shelf life, packaging form and whether it holds OCOP certification into the checklist of trading terms gives material for gauging the region's level of quality control.
- Confirm the raw material's origin (intercropping or dedicated field, and the size of the partnered farmland)
- Consider whether the processing method (hand-roasting combined, or machine drying) can be used in the product's narrative
- Judge whether the exit (existing contracts and whether exclusivity exists) is fixed
Summary: start small and secure from the exit
What the Minh Chau case shows is a path by which even a single individual can reach regular overseas exports—without giant facilities or vast plantations—by securing raw material through intercropping, adding shelf life and story through processing, and fixing the exit with an exclusive contract. If a Japanese dried-fruit and dried-vegetable OEM moves next, the realistic order to try is: (1) choose one raw-material item that can ride on existing local farming, (2) organize the difference in your own drying and processing steps into a form you can narrate, and (3) first sign an annual contract with an overseas buyer for a small lot you can sell out. Build the exit and the story before chasing scale—that order is the very heart of this small case.
