Increasing processed lychee volume, reducing consumption pressure

During the main harvest season, Bac Giang daily provides 10,000 tonnes of lychees for domestic consumption and export. In order to reduce fresh lychee consumption pressure, many businesses and households have stepped up processing to make lychee products more attractive, diverse and popular.

People in Village 1, Phuong Son commune (Luc Nam district) dry lychees.

Burning lychee drying ovens

Among processed products, dried lychee is always an effective solution with many advantages such as large volume and available space, raw materials and local labor. The family of Dang Van Thanh in Village 1, Phuong Son commune (Luc Nam district) boasts many years of lychee drying experience. 

Thanh said that his family expects to process about 200 tonnes of fresh lychees this year. Every day, he buys lychees from big wholesale points in Lang Giang, Luc Nam and Luc Ngan districts. Dried lychee is exported to China, with prices ranging from 25,000 VND to 35,000 VND per kg. 

Thanks to low prices of fresh lychees this crop, dried lychee will bring in profit so he is assured to purchase lychees for processing. At present, Thanh's family is hiring five laborers working in the drying ovens.

According to the statistics of the People's Committee of Luc Nam district, hundreds of households in the district are running lychee drying ovens, with total output estimated at 6,000 tonnes (accounting for about 20 percent of the district's fresh lychee production). Most of the households use drying ovens that were built in previous years, thus reducing investment and increasing processing efficiency.

Not only the households in Luc Nam district, people in Hong Giang, Phi Dien, Tan Quang, Quy Son and Tan Moc communes of Luc Nam district have also dried lychees. Currently, Luc Ngan district has more than 200 drying ovens, consuming thousands of tonnes of lychees.

This is a traditional processing solution to preserve products from 4 to 6 months for export. It also helps reduce fresh lychee consumption pressure and increase the value of lychees. In the same way, people in Son Dong, Lang Giang and Yen The districts have also actively bought coal and firewood to run many lychee drying ovens.

New products

Not only dried lychee, many enterprises have applied modern technology to turn lychees into unique products with high economic values. In particular, the Ngan Giang Trading Company Limited (Luc Ngan district) has purchased more than 20 tonnes of lychees to process them into vinegar branded Kim Ngan. This is a fragrant, delicious product that has been put on sale for a few years and quickly gained its footholds at home and abroad.

In this crop, the Dong Giao Foodstuff Export Joint Stock Company (Hanoi) has set up 10 points of purchasing lychees in Luc Ngan district. Along with exporting grade-1 fresh lychees to Japan, the UK and Germany, the company has also bought about 10,000 tonnes of grade-2 and 3 lychees to be processed into juice. 

Dinh Cao Khue, General Director of the Dong Giao Foodstuff Export Joint Stock Company, said: "This year, Luc Ngan lychees have good quality and are very suitable for processing. The company’s lychee juice product has become more and popular. The business will increase processing capacity, enhance promotion campaigns and expand consumption markets in the coming time”.

Representatives of the provincial Department of Industry and Commerce and the People's Committees of Luc Ngan and Luc Nam districts said that boosting processing activities will help diversify lychee products to help them reach more market segments, thus increasing the value of this plant. 

However, in fact, the volume of processed lychees remains low. In the coming time, the localities will continue to focus on attracting investment and creating favorable conditions for enterprises to expand production scale, renovate technology and increase lychee processing capacity.