What began with his pregnant wife craving a fruit he could not find at local markets has grown into a 2,000-tree farm in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, earning farmer Bui Huu Toan up to $19,000 a year in profit from fresh fruit alone.
Walking through his lush 1.8-hectare orchard, Bui Huu Toan, 39, from My Ngai Ward in Dong Thap Province, checks his star gooseberry trees while calculating when to induce them to bear fruit at just the right time for the market.
Around 2,000 star gooseberry trees now fill the orchard, generating hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong in annual income. Yet the idea did not begin with a business plan. It started with his wife’s pregnancy craving.
Several years ago, when his pregnant wife wanted star gooseberries but he could not find any despite searching local markets, Toan decided to grow the fruit on land he had bought with savings accumulated during three years working in Japan. He started with 1,000 trees before expanding to around 2,000.
After expenses, sales of fresh fruit alone generate annual profits of approximately $15,200–19,000.
A young man heads to Japan ‘for the money’
Toan’s 1.8-hectare orchard has around 2,000 fruit-bearing star gooseberry trees. Photo: Thien ChiToan checks star gooseberry trees in his orchard in late August. Photo: Thien Chi
Looking back on how he started building his livelihood, Toan said that after graduating from high school, his goal was straightforward: find a job and make money. At the time, factory workers in his hometown earned only around $150–190 a month.
Through newspapers and television, he learned about a programme sending Vietnamese workers to Japan. Hearing that monthly earnings could reach several times what he could make at home, the young man in his twenties decided to apply.
“To be honest, I went to Japan because I wanted the money. I heard I could make about $760 a month there, while factory workers back home earned only around $150–190, so I thought I would give it a try,” Toan recalled with a laugh.
His decision worried his family. Overseas employment was still relatively unfamiliar to them at the time, and information was limited. His relatives feared he might struggle to find his footing in a foreign country and could even return home in debt. After repeated persuasion, however, his family agreed to take out a loan so he could go.
In March 2008, Toan moved to Japan and began working for an interior furnishings company that mainly produced cabinets, tables and chairs. The company provided accommodation and two meals a day.
During his first year, he earned around $760 a month. Over the following two years, overtime could push his monthly income to nearly $1,520. He sent money home to gradually repay the family’s loan, then saved enough to buy one hectare of land for approximately $15,200.
But after three years away, earning more money in Japan was no longer what he wanted most.
“After just a month or two, I started missing home. By the end of three years, I missed it terribly, so I decided to return. I had managed to save some money, bought land and decided to build my life back home,” Toan said.
In March 2011, exactly three years after leaving for Japan, he returned home.
With savings and land, Toan began looking for ways to make a living. His first venture combined growing ornamental plants with trading antiques and ceramic pots. With little experience, however, he inevitably made costly mistakes.
“At first, I didn’t know much about ornamental plants, but I loved them, so I kept going. I lost money during the first year or two, and at one point I owed the bank tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.
After a difficult period, his ornamental plant and antique business gradually improved. He repaid his debts, accumulated more capital and continued searching for new opportunities.
A pregnancy craving changes his fortunes
After working in Japan for three years, Toan returned to his hometown and used his savings to start building a livelihood. Photo: Thien Chi
Around five years ago, an ordinary family moment led Toan to star gooseberries, a small, tart tropical fruit familiar across Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
His wife was pregnant and craving the fruit, but Toan could not find it despite visiting several markets.
“We already had the land, so I thought I might as well grow some. Then whenever my wife wanted them, she could just go into the garden and pick them,” he recalled.
What began as an idea to grow a few trees for his family soon became something bigger. Toan noticed that star gooseberries in the Mekong Delta were generally grown around people’s homes rather than commercially, even though demand for the fruit was substantial for making preserves during Tet, Vietnam’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Believing supply could fall short of demand, he decided to try growing the fruit on a commercial scale. He planted 1,000 trees before expanding to more than 2,000.
“The trees don’t need much fertilizer or pesticide, so I thought there wasn’t much risk in giving it a try,” he said.
His orchard now contains around 2,000 star gooseberry trees across 18,000 square meters, planted approximately three meters apart.
According to Toan, the trees are relatively easy to grow and require little maintenance. Every three to six months, he applies cow manure or organic fertilizer to replenish nutrients and keep the soil loose. Grown from seed, well-maintained trees can produce substantial quantities of fruit after around 12 to 15 months.
The most important part, however, is controlling when the trees bear fruit so that harvests coincide with periods of high market demand.
“The cycle from treatment to harvest takes around two and a half to three months. Once the leaves mature, I stop watering so the trees shed them, then start watering again to trigger flowering and fruiting,” Toan explained.
Toan controls the fruiting cycle of his star gooseberry trees to time harvests for periods of high market demand. Photo: Thien ChiRipe yellow star gooseberries hang heavily from branches in Toan’s orchard. Photo courtesy of Bui Huu Toan
The technique allows him to schedule harvests for the year-end market. From the beginning of the final lunar month before Tet, he focuses on selling fresh fruit to traders as processors increase purchases for making traditional Tet preserves.
Traders come directly to the orchard, pick the fruit themselves and select the largest star gooseberries for processing. Prices for commercial-quality fruit have at times reached around $1.30 per kilogram.
Toan’s orchard produces three to four harvests a year, depending on the weather. After costs, fresh fruit alone generates annual profits of around $15,200–19,000. That figure does not include income from the star gooseberry wine he later developed.
As the number of trees increased, however, Toan faced another challenge: finding buyers. Outside the Tet season, selling the entire fresh harvest was not always possible.
Rather than reducing the size of the orchard, he began looking for ways to process the fruit and create his own market.
“When you grow this much, you simply can’t sell all of it fresh. I had to find another outlet for what I was producing,” he said.
Toan traveled to Binh Thuan Province to learn how dragon fruit wine was made. After extensive research and experimentation, he met an experienced producer and purchased her recipe. Back home, he continued researching and adapting the process for star gooseberries.
“It was quite a struggle. I had to meet all kinds of people, and eventually I was lucky enough to find a woman who specialized in dragon fruit wine. I bought her recipe and then worked out how to apply it to star gooseberries,” he recalled.
Today, he operates a star gooseberry wine production facility within the orchard, allowing him to use fruit grown by his own family.
Processing the fruit has not only helped solve the problem of unsold produce but also created another avenue for developing the farm.
Opening a coffee shop in the orchard
Visitors to Chum Ruot Garden can explore the orchard and pick star gooseberries to eat for free during peak fruiting season. Photo courtesy of Bui Huu Toan
Toan did not stop at growing and processing star gooseberries. He also decided to make use of the orchard itself by opening a coffee shop - although the idea was not initially driven by profit.
“After developing the orchard, I planned to create a place where my family could relax. Then I realized how peaceful it felt here in the countryside. I thought that if I enjoyed it, other people probably would too, so I opened a coffee shop,” he said.
Set within the orchard, the cafe allows visitors to enjoy coffee and star gooseberry tea while exploring the garden and experiencing the atmosphere of the Mekong Delta countryside.
During peak fruiting season, visitors can even pick and eat star gooseberries for free. There is no admission charge for the orchard. A cup of coffee costs around $0.70, while star gooseberry tea is approximately $0.85.
“I don’t focus too much on making money from the cafe. I mainly want it to be a place that lets people know there is somewhere like this in my hometown,” Toan said.
On weekends, the cafe can welcome around 300–400 visitors a day.
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