Previously in Quang Ngai, people only knew about raising familiar animals. However, these models still have low economic efficiency, making Mr. Pham Hoang Huy, director of Sa-ach Co. Ltd., wondering if he could change to another model to bring more efficiency to the economic development and all above, a nutritious food for everyone.
Elevating the Sa-ach Cricket brand
The food demand for insects of Vietnamese people has been increasing. Crickets are benign insects. Especially, dishes from crickets contain high levels of protein, fiber and calcium that are beneficial to human health. At the same time, in Eastern medicine, crickets are used as a talisman to treat urinary tract diseases, urinary retention, and bladder stone diseases. It is known that globally more than 800 million people are malnourished and food is increasingly scarce. Based on these reasons and grasping the culinary demands for insects, the name Sa-ach Crickets was born.
Food is neither a poem nor a picture which use a plain sheet of paper to present it. Once in reality, the dish contains everyone's health within it. Therefore, from the beginning, the company had intensively and carefully invested in input materials, breeding processes and production to achieve the finished products. Sa-ach emphasizes the closed-loop model for its production development: forestry, farming, food production and environmental management. Crickets are insects that could create a source of fertilizer for plants, both helping to balance the ecosystem and providing food for livestock and humans.
Sa-ach Co. Ltd. attended “The Second Quang Nam Innovative Start-up Festival - TechFest Quang Nam 2021"
The main ingredients to raise clean crickets are things closed to daily life. However, the difficulty lies in raising crickets is that the process requires meticulous work. Mr. Pham Hoang Huy, Director of Sa-ach Co. Ltd., revealed the secret for Sa-ach Crickets to be chosen by devotees to enjoy insects which was: "To increase the deliciousness of crickets and satisfy different local tastes, we fed the crickets with pumpkin to create the fat and fleshy taste that Northerners love. The southerners are fond of sweets, so we provided them the crickets fed with sugar cane at the end of the raising process which created a natural sweetness in crickets. It was the sophisticated way of raising crickets that we have made a difference in our dried crickets in the domestic and international markets.”
In order for Sa-ach Cricket brand to survive, there are many things that need to change because the needs of customers are increasingly different. As the middle class of Vietnam appears more and more, they are more and more interested in choosing what is good for health to eat. Currently, the dish made from crickets is still newly introduced to the Vietnamese culinary market.
However, that is only a small part of the business and does not determine the entire success of the company once it is already in the food industry on a large scale. Management and customer service are also very important. We think, the best thing we have brought to Sa-ach Crickets is a new way of management, new thinking and new colors to ensure that Sa-ach Crickets could develop in long-term more sustainably.
Sustainable direction once the project was successful
In the past, most of people only processed dishes from insects in a common way, without developing serving orientation to follow the chain of farming, processing and trading. To implement the idea of food from insects, Sa-ach Co. Ltd. has assigned members to be in charge of different fields from the raw material stage, the barn and the market, etc.
Raising crickets must ensure that they are fed with clean foods. When the crickets are young, the main food is ground rice bran. Afterwards, they are fed with more cassava leaves and water spinach. These feeding sources were based on local left-over agriculture, which saved 75% of the feed costs. At the same time, in order to have more raw materials, the company also cooperated with cricket-raising households in Son Tinh district and contributed in generating output and increasing income for local people. From now on, people in Son Tinh land have a new job that is raising clean crickets.
The main food to fed early young crickets is ground rice bran, then more cassava leaves and water spinach.
The processing of Sa-ach Crickets is really sophisticated. “When the crickets were ready to release to the market, we classified and selected qualified crickets for processing. First, we put the crickets in water at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius, took out and soaked them in salt water for 20 to 30 minutes, then washed and rinsed with clean water for 8 to 10 times. In particular, when steaming crickets, we used water with ginger, lemongrass, and lemon to reduce the smell of crickets, making them smell better. Then, we marinated them with the prepared spices. Once the crickets have absorbed the spices, they were proceeded for drying. All the steps were important, but perhaps the step of steaming the crickets is the most difficult one, because if you over-steamed them, the crickets will become bitter, so this was perhaps the chef's steaming secret so that the crickets were cooked well enough" - Anh Huy said.
Initially, the company started-up with lemongrass and chili -fried crickets because this is a popular flavor that many people love. But in order to develop a national scale market, the most difficult challenge was preventing the products from being damaged or moldy so that the products could safely reach consumers. After intensive research, Mr. Huy came up with the idea of drying crickets and marinating them with typical spices in order to reduce the moisture of the dish without using preservatives. This has helped the Sa-ach Cricket brand to assert its safe and quality products. Up to now, dried spiced crickets have been recognized for food safety and trademark registration.
Sa-ach Co. Ltd. is a member of the Provincial Cooperative Alliance of Quang Ngai Province.
Good news, Sa-ach Cricket products have been present in many countries including Korea, China, Thailand and Cambodia. In the European market, Sa-ach Crickets had marked a big transformation when setting a foot in the distant Netherlands.
We were impressed when seeing the S-shaped map of Vietnam clearly printed on the packaging of Sa-ach Cricket products. It seems to partly affirm the great love for our homeland through a rustic dish in the world market.
For Sa-ach Crickets, it is an opportunity to experience and practice love completely and authentically.
Hoa Xuan
