Mr. Lê Văn Hoan is a resident from Đông Sơn Commune, Yên Thế District, Bắc Giang Province. By leveraging wood by-products, he has been producing Vietnam’s broom handles, earning several billion VND each year.
Even to this day, Mr. Lê Văn Hoan has amazed by his success in utilizing wood by-products. He turned these materials into useful products that generate high economic returns.
Sharing about his years of hardship, Mr. Hoan said he had tried many extremely demanding jobs. There were times when he worked with local construction crews as a laborer mixing mortar. Then he made Vietnamese sawdust charcoal and worked as a motorbike taxi driver. He also collected and transported fruit to Hanoi, roasted pork, opened an internet café, and worked as a long-distance hired driver.
However, amid the struggles of making a living, households were expanding their businesses and competition was fierce. In that context, the desire to rise up and find a new, different path pushed him forward. This motivation led him to pursue a new livelihood.
On one occasion, while transporting fruit to Long Biên wholesale market (Hanoi), Mr. Hoan noticed many people drying peeled wood along the dyke near Đuống Bridge. He stopped to learn more and found out that the wood-peeling trade—supplying materials to furniture manufacturers and civil construction companies—was not overly difficult.
He also realized that the market for such products was always wide open. Moreover, the required equipment was not complex. In addition, in his hometown of Yên Thế there was an abundant supply of plantation timber that were on-site raw material, eliminating long-distance transportation and reducing costs and product prices.
Vietnam’s broom handles
With that in mind, he pooled all the savings his family had accumulated over the years. He also borrowed money from banks and friends to raise more than 200 million VND to build a workshop. At the same time, he asked acquaintances—who had previously hired him to transport fruit in Lạng Sơn—to accompany him to China to purchase machinery and equipment. In 2008, he produced the first batch of peeled wood, bringing a great joy to his family.
From then on, the new venture began to take shape. Traders and enterprises from Gia Lâm (Hanoi) came the factory to purchase every batch of goods produced. The wood-peeling facility continued to grow and its products gradually became more diversified.
However, in the early days of the business, not everything went smoothly. There were times when the wood-peeling machines broke down, or when dozens of cubic meters of finished products became moldy. These difficulties pushed the workshop to the brink of a dead end.
Then, in 2010, during a chance conversation with an employee of a Ho Chi Minh City–based company specializing in the production and export of broom handles, Mr. Hoan found a new opportunity. The company was seeking raw material suppliers, and he came up with the idea of utilizing the wood cores at his facility to develop this product. Previously, after the logs were peeled, only the core remained. This by-product was typically used as firewood or for garden fencing.
With that idea in mind, he learned how to reprocess the by-products to standard broom-handle dimensions. He also straightened them, wrapped them in plastic, and completed them into finished products that met his partner’s requirements. Then, he carefully refined and inspected each broom handle. As a result, he could remove defective items before packing and labeling for delivery.
Vietnam’s broom handle facility
In business, Mr. Hoan has always held integrity as his guiding principle. He consistently insists that his products meet quality standards while maintaining reasonable prices. As a result, Vietnam’s broom handles he produces have sold in increasingly large quantities. Consequently, the scale of production has continued to expand.
Hòa Phát Group has come here to sign contracts for purchasing plywood. Mr. Hoan’s enterprise is further improving its wood-peeling and plywood production processes, as well as broom-handle manufacturing. At the same time, it continues to develop new products.
Today, the stages of wood processing for broom-handle production have gradually been automatic. Each month, the company produces 500 cubic meters of peeled veneer and plywood, along with 300,000 broom handles. This output provides stable employment for 60 workers with an average income of about 5.5 million VND per person.
Currently, Mr. Hoan also sources raw materials from neighboring provinces. These materials supply two production facilities in Yên Thế and one branch in Thái Nguyên City, all operating based on orders. He travels across provinces and cities to seek partners. He also signs contracts for the consumption and export of wood boards, plywood, and Vietnamese broom handles.
Although his successful startup brings in annual profits of 1.5–2 billion VND, making him a successful entrepreneur. However, he has ambition to make full use of locally planted forest resources. In addition, he aims to improve wood-pressing and pine finger-jointing processes, and to export directly to Canada or sign direct export contracts for broom handles to Egypt and Thailand without intermediaries.
Vietnamese source: https://dantri.com.vn/lao-dong-viec-lam/thu-tien-ty-tu-viec-lam-can-choi-20171128080808066.htm