Engineers make hundreds of millions from coloring water for flowers

Although it has emerged for a long time, the trend of using dyed flowers has only recently emerged in Vietnam. Initially, the price of this dyed flower arrangement was quite expensive because only imported goods were available. Recently, however, this market has grown in popularity thanks to its ability to localize from flowers to dyes. The person behind this floral dye solution is an electronics engineer for a water treatment company.

He is Le Trung Hieu, inventor and founder of the high-tech water treatment equipment company EWater, the 41st science and technology company in Ho Chi Minh City.

Graduated as an electronics engineer from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, in 2016, Hieu started the business after 20 years of work. Starting with the development of electronic scale water treatment equipment, in the past 6 years, it has added new equipment for water treatment with the fields of electronics, electrolysis applied in agriculture, industry and buildings, shopping malls.

Many big projects like Landmark 81, Van Don Airport, Masan factory, VinFast have used its water treatment solutions. “I also sold more than 1,500 equipment used to treat water for cooking rice, bathing and washing for soldiers, especially in border areas and islands so no more chemicals are needed,” he said.

Water treatment engineers came to the flower industry by accident. In 2019, he went on vacation to Da Lat and saw a lot of flowers being thrown away because they wilted quickly. He thought of developing nutrient drains to help flowers stay fresh for a long time.

In collaboration with two students from Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport and Communication and a Japanese partner, through nearly 1,000 experiments, he developed water that keeps flowers fresh for up to 20 days based on magnetic field water technology and copper ions. products for domestic brands.

The second chance came from a sixth grade biology experiment. The children were assigned to color the flowers with food coloring, but to no avail. “Some other students completed this exercise using brush ink, but they didn’t make it,” he said.

Last year, during the height of the blockade due to the Covid epidemic, its water treatment works for buildings and commercial centers were affected. On the occasion of being “unemployed”, he decided to start implementing the idea of ​​completing the 6th grade “practice”.

Observing this market, he saw an opportunity when there were no domestic suppliers of flower dye solutions. The market only has medicines imported from the US and Israel at high prices, making colored flowers also expensive.

“Not majoring in biology or chemistry, so I have to study a lot, try again and again. If you don’t know, ask chemical engineers and teachers, from university lecturers to high school,” he said.

When there was some success, his group took the drug to the Binh Dien wholesale market to try to color it for small traders, but they were not interested. “The next time I went to the florist to offer a solution, the colors were uneven, the boss frowned,” he recalls.

Finally, his team also succeeded in experimenting with coloring peonies for Langbiang Ranch. From there, business opportunities open. “Now I sell this company about 1,000 liters a month,” he said.

Officially producing and running a new business since early 2022, he is having a good time when the flower coloring trend is on the rise. “The flower dye market has existed for a long time, but it is not significant. It was only when the epidemic broke out,” he said. According to Pak Hieu, the reason may be that white chrysanthemums are slow to export during the epidemic season, so traders paint them to expand the domestic consumption segment. Chrysanthemum and other spongy flowers like roses, coins are inherently easy to color.

Thanks to high demand and being the only domestic company that provides flower coloring solutions at a lower price than imported goods, Mr. Hieu quickly took over the market. Every month, the company’s product sales are from 200-300 million dong. According to a large florist in Ho Chi Minh City, the cost of dyeing a bouquet of 10 flowers with domestic goods costs only VND 1,000 compared to VND 3,000 using imported medicines.

Tran Cong Nghia, Director of Huong Farm Company, said that flower arrangement artists have been coloring flowers for a long time, but the quality is not high, the coloring of the flowers is not beautiful, and the coloring time is very long. with 12 hours or more. , so it cannot be commercialized.

Flower dyeing water is a niche market that mainly caters to certain customer segments, especially white flower dyes, so it is not attractive enough for large companies to jump into. Small companies cannot afford to finance their own research and production. “Pak Hieu’s side has the advantage with the availability of magnetic water technology and has had success with flower arranging water,” said Pak Nghia.

According to Ms. Tran Ngoc Thanh Truc, Hoa Tam Dinh Accessories Sales Manager, flower dyeing water has never been researched and produced in Vietnam before because it is a specialized industry that requires a combination of different knowledge, investment costs. Big investment and research causes many people to fail. Meanwhile, the dyeing technique is a business secret, so the big flower companies don’t transfer it to Vietnam.

“To successfully research aquatic flower dyes requires someone who understands the needs of the market, has a combined knowledge of water, biology, chemistry, and physics, and he also takes a long time to experiment. Flowers take a long time to color. This product was researched during the Ho Chi Minh City period as favorable conditions for Mr. Hieu”, said Ms. Truc.

Engineers earn hundreds of millions from coloring water for flowers

Currently, his company has just processed a flower dye brand and established a new brand of its own, with two customer segments. Processed products, which are sold to small flower shops, are a quick solution for soaking flowers and dyes.

Meanwhile, the brand is a concentrated product line, which needs to be mixed with water, used for large flower shops and suppliers. “From industrial sources, I estimate that I can capture around 50% market share. This market is very small, there are only about 10 big companies, 4 companies have used my product,” he said speaking.

Mr. Vo Xuan Phuoc, a florist in Da Lat, assessed that the dye flower market in Vietnam has grown in the last 5 years with a growth rate of more than 30% per annum. This is a great opportunity for domestic flower dye products.

“In recent years, many new varieties of white chrysanthemum have been planted in Da Lat. In addition to export, white flowers are also an input for coloring, increasing the value of flowers by 15-30%,” he said. Phuoc comments.

Going forward, Le Trung Hieu is also targeting export markets, in the near future, Malaysia and Singapore because there are only a few suppliers in Asia, except for Japan and Israel with high prices. Malaysia is growing peonies again, importing American colors for coloring and selling a lot to Vietnam.

In addition, he also developed an experimental device for coloring flowers for students. It provides samples to schools to develop markets before official commercialization.

“Similar US utensils are sold in Vietnam as artificial colors and flowers made of paper while I will let students experiment with real flowers,” he said.

Hieu believes that it will be difficult to find new domestic competitors to compete with. According to him, although everyone knows that using food coloring and water from school, it is still not easy to do. It also took them two years to perfect the recipe, and secondly, the cost advantage was that the company itself produced the equipment to make magnetic water.

“I took the hard road and no one went to do it, because the easy way is the downhill road,” he said.

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