A 33-year-old woman who earned an MBA in Saigon revives a brown-sugar workshop in her hometown—Quang Ngai’s last remaining one, reaching OCOP three stars

The 33-year-old MBA holder who took over Quang Ngai's last workshop

In the Thien Do hamlet of Binh Son commune, Quang Ngai province in central Vietnam, there stands the last traditional sugarcane sugar workshop remaining in the area. The one who took it over is Trinh Thi Kim Oanh, a 33-year-old who earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Ho Chi Minh City. Just as her father was scaling back the business and weighing whether to "switch to raw sugar syrup for shrimp farming," she chose instead to keep the traditional method alive, and went on to earn a three-star rating under OCOP (One Commune One Product) certification.

3-4 hours of boiling plus multiple filterings: the process to an "amber-colored syrup"

Traditionally, black sugar production in Quang Ngai meant filtering sugarcane juice once or twice and then boiling it down, but Oanh reworked the process. She concentrates the juice over 3 to 4 hours while filtering it repeatedly, refining it until it becomes a "clear, amber-colored syrup." The finished products come in two lines, molasses and coarse cane sugar, and are sold online nationwide.

Background: the golden era when "300 kg fetched three taels of gold in the 1980s-90s"

According to the article, sugarcane sugar from Thien Do hamlet enjoyed a golden era in the 1980s and '90s, when a single 300 kg batch earned as much as three taels of gold. Afterward, the spread of sweetened syrups (such as high-fructose corn syrup), cheaper raw sugar for aquaculture, and the migration of young workers to the cities led one workshop after another to close. The Oanh family remaining as the "last workshop" in Thien Do hamlet is the backdrop against which she decided to return home.

Product and certification data table

Another homecoming story: a 35-year-old's silk cooperative

Within the same Quang Ngai province, Ton Long Quy (age 35) of Buong hamlet in Nghia Giang commune revived sericulture and now leads a cooperative of 12 households. Through improved silkworm breeds and new sales channels, members' annual income reportedly reaches VND 100 million (about US$3,800). Paired with the MBA homecoming black-sugar story, local media have featured the two as examples of Quang Ngai's "youth x tradition x local products."

Reactions from the industry and locals

OCOP secretariat: OCOP (One Commune One Product) is a local-product certification system that the Vietnamese government began rolling out in earnest in 2018, with five stars as the top tier. Three stars marks a regional-representative class, and from four stars up, opportunities widen, including the right to exhibit at the national OCOP fair. Quang Ngai's black sugar earning three stars makes it easier to reach food distribution networks in the north and south.

Local residents: Amid a mood of "if the workshop disappears, the hamlet's name will be forgotten too," the case of an MBA-returned daughter taking over the business has been covered favorably by local media as a reversal signal against the outflow of young people to the cities.

Food buyers: Since sales are mainly online, it's a quality tier that draws repeat orders from upscale grocery stores in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, vegetarian cafes, and confectionery brands. The highly transparent syrup pairs well with baked goods, cocktail bases, and health-conscious drinks, pointing to room for expansion as a commercial ingredient.

Points of interest from a Japanese buyer and editorial perspective

First, traditionally made Vietnamese sugarcane sugar is an ingredient that competes directly with Japan's black sugar from Okinawa and Amami. That said, its technical differentiation, a clear amber-syrup finish, makes it worth considering as an OEM ingredient for Japanese craft coffee shops, natural wine bars, and baked-goods workshops.

Second, OCOP three stars sits close to Japan's "Geographical Indication (GI)" certification or "sixth-industrialization certification," so Japanese food OEM and private-brand developers can read it as a benchmark for quality traceability. It's also a useful reference for supplier selection in Agriture's food OEM support work.

Third, the story of an MBA-holding woman taking over the family business and evolving a traditional method is a theme that resonates with Japanese local media too. It can be introduced alongside comparable cases with a shared context, such as young brewery heads who took over long-established Kyoto sake breweries, or the female president who inherited a salt farm in Noto.

Industry ripple effects: the three pillars of OCOP x traditional food x women returning home to start businesses

This Quang Ngai case is likely to be cited often going forward as a textbook example of reviving traditional food workshops in central Vietnam. Following silkworms (Nghia Giang commune) and sugarcane sugar (Binh Son commune), the three-pillar model of "MBA/master's homecoming x OCOP certification x online sales" could well spread to other traditional foods such as salt, fish sauce, rice noodles, and confectionery. For Japanese niche-food importers and cafe private-brand planners, small-scale OCOP-certified products from central Vietnam make for a source that hits all three notes: story, quality, and rarity.

Basic information table

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Summary

The story of a daughter who earned an MBA in the city and refined her family's sugarcane sugar workshop into a "clear amber syrup," carrying it all the way to OCOP three stars, is proof that the triangle of central Vietnam's traditional food, youth, and certification systems has started to move. For food buyers and private-brand planners in Japan, it's a trend worth watching.

Source

• Young people revive fading traditional trades in Vietnam’s Quang Ngai（Asia News Network）
• Vietnam News (related coverage on OCOP and the revival of regional traditional crafts)