Price more than half a million / kg, mangosteen traders “kill” to make money
The price of peeled green mangosteen can be up to 500,000 VND/kg. Ten times more expensive than ripe
At a mangosteen barn in Thu Duc city, Mr. Pham Duy Phi (owner of the barn) said that during the peak season, green mangosteen “sold out”, every day this barn had to hire more than 20 workers to work continuously from 6 am to 10 pm just to… peel mangosteen to supply the market.
Constantly listening to the phone from wholesale customers, Mr. Phi (owner of the mangosteen barn) shared: “Currently, there are about 20 employees working on the spot and about a dozen workers accepting goods to go home to peel. To have workers. making me have to post on job search groups, continuous workers are not enough to supply the market. Customers who text messages do not have time to respond to customers.”
Speaking to us, Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Ha (owner of the barn) said that, on average, Ms. Ha’s barn consumes more than 1 ton of green mangosteen every day, the finished product is from 100 to 150 kg of fleshed mangosteen (peeled).
“Many people keep saying that water is too expensive for bamboo shoots, but it’s not, looking at it, it doesn’t cost much. My side peels directly from the faucet, doesn’t waste much, but the quality of the bamboo shoots is white and healthy. more crispy. Soaking lemon with salt will not blacken, and ice makes it more crispy,” said Ha.
According to Ms. Ha, the current workers have to work at full capacity for 8 hours to have enough mangosteen to supply the market.
“I’m pairing, one person pruning, one peeler, one pair peels over 10kg, a day’s income is from 1 million 200 thousand to 1 million 300 thousand, one person gets about 650 thousand VND. As for trimming bamboo shoots alone, each people get a day from 500 to 600,000 thousand. My side pays wages by sign.”
According to Ms. Ha, this year is considered as the “year of making money” of the barn owners who specialize in selling mangosteen, especially green mangosteen.
On average, each worker can peel 5 – 6 kg of mangosteen/day.
Just peeled mangosteen, Nguyen Thi Hien (student of the College of Transport in Ho Chi Minh City) said that peeling mangosteen is divided into 2 stages. In particular, peeling is the most difficult stage, so Hien paired up with a male friend, who peeled the skin and trimmed the bamboo intestine to make it beautiful and clean.
“Peeling is the most difficult stage, if not skillful, it will cause damage to the mangosteen meat, the bamboo shoots will be lost. At first, I was taught by the brothers and sisters here, but it took me 1-2 days to get used to it. I did the job. I have been here for 4-5 days, when I didn’t have this job before, I went to serve milk tea at coffee shops and milk tea shops.Working here is more stable, I don’t go out, don’t spend a lot of money staying at home. It’s close to home. Sometimes I can work outside for a few hours, but here I can work for 8 hours, earning about 400-500 thousand/day.”
1 ton of new mangosteen produces more than 100kg of mangosteen.
According to Hien, this job is not too difficult, but it creates a stable income and is enough to cover living costs in Saigon for many students like Hien.
“This job is enough to pay for my accommodation and food and daily living expenses. Females going to work as pruners will be more leisurely than peeling. Mangosteen skin is hard, I have to use a lot of effort to peel and then peel it. It took me about half a day to get used to the peeling work, sometimes it takes time to get used to the knife control.Every day I output from 6-7kg, my income is about 400 up to 500,000 VND,” said Le Minh Anh (born in 2002, a 3rd year student at the College of Transport in Ho Chi Minh City).
Sharing about the reason why mangosteen intestines cost from 500,000/kg, sometimes even up to 700,000 VND/kg, Hoang Thi Thu Ha explained that with 5-6kg of green mangosteen, labor will only produce about 1kg of finished product. Mangosteen intestines, in addition to the difficult pruning of bamboo shoots, most of the barns have to hire workers, so the cost of intestines is high.
“I sold less than 500,000 VND/kg, the price of peeled mangosteen on the market is high because 4-5kg of raw mangosteen can produce a kilogram of fleshy mangosteen, not everyone can make the finished product. Luu is “hot” and everyone is racing to sell it, but it’s actually very difficult to get a white mangosteen inside like that.The peeling work is very hard and expensive, after the pruner, the barn owner will check the specifications of the mangosteen intestine, very many barns have to remove the intestines that do not meet the standards.”
The finished mangosteen is soaked in lemon and salt and kept in cold storage.Talking about the secret of choosing a crispy and delicious mangosteen intestine, the owner of this bamboo shoot said: “The milky white mangosteen intestine is crispy, hard, delicious when eaten, but the product inside is not as good as it is, cannot be preserved. long.
Green mangosteen is easier to sell because it doesn’t spoil as much as ripe mangosteen, I can control the quality, peel off which fruit I discard, and ripe mangosteen I can’t control the quality of the mangosteen.”
According to this barn, it is still the beginning of the mangosteen season, so the barn only trades green mangosteen, gardeners do not have ripe mangosteen products.
Photo: Internet (Vinlove.net)
According to our research, the trend of making “raw mangosteen chicken salad” spread from TikTok has caused the green mangosteen in the gardens to “sold out” before the harvest.