Page 95 - Agricultural innovation

5.13.2. Model development
Before establishing Ngoc Duy Company, Ms. Nguyen Thi Loc had nearly 20 years of experience working
at Lam Dong Pharmaceutical Union Enterprise. During that period, the People’s Committee of Lam
Dong province required the enterprise to pay attention to the production of artichoke tea to promote
the local strengths, widely supply to consumers and towards export. To carry out this task, Lam Dong
Pharmaceutical Union Enterprise purchases fresh artichoke leaves to produce pills, artichoke flowers
for export, while the stems and roots are not purchased due to bitter taste (farmers leave for cows or
dried for cooking). Knowing that the composition of artichoke stems and roots is somehow the same
of leaves and flowers, Mrs. Loc started thinking about making tea.
With this determination, Ms. Loc
resigned from Lam Dong Pharmaceutical
Union Enterprise and switched to tinkering
and researching how to make artichoke tea
bags. In 1990, after three months, Ms. Loc
introduced to the market Da Lat artichoke
tea bags branded Ngoc Duy.
The shaping of Ngoc Duy’s artichoke
tea brand has been demonstrated since
1990 through a process of hard work,
investment, and effort by a collective of
employees with a long-term commitment
to the company. That is a chain of processes
from surveying customer and market
needs, accessing technology and investing
in technological innovations in accordance Figure 28. Farmers harvest artichoke in the field
with localized materials, creating additional Source: Health and Life Newspaper
safety features of the product and create the
attraction of the product to consumers for the product.
At present, Artichoke Ngoc Duy brand can officially stand in the domestic and foreign markets
by diversifying its products. Therefore, the company’s products are favourable not only in domestic
market but also international one including Canada, France, Taiwan, Singapore or Japan. In addition,
the company’s products have also been diversified in other herbs such as bitter gourd, ginger, chamber
bitter/leafflower, multiflorous knootweed or crinum latifolium.
Since the invention of artichoke tea bags with raw materials including artichoke stems and roots,
farmers can gain more income instead of feeding artichoke stems and roots to cows or dry them as
firewood. Farmers have also been supported by Ngoc Duy company on providing seed and fertilisers
and production output has sold to company.
Since 2010, Ngoc Duy Company has joined the Alliance for production of Artichoke Tea through
the form of production association with farmer households, Lam Dong Department of Agriculture and
Rural Development and the World Bank. This is a form of cooperation between farmers, businesses,
research and management agencies and sponsoring agencies. This form helps farmers ensure their
production output, solve difficulties in investment capital; helping the company to have a stable source
of raw materials and closely monitor quality and technique (through the role of the Department of
Agriculture and Rural Development). Basically, farmers are supported by the World Bank with 40%
of production costs, then Ngoc Duy Company is the only unit with the right and responsibility to

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