Nguyen Dang Thuy Khue and fabrics made from coffee grounds - A promising green startup
Nguyen Dang Thuy Khue, a grade twelve student of Sai Gon South International School, has made encouraging achievements in a green startup project.
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Khue owns Soc Nhim café on Phu Quoc island, Vietnam and is an R&D assistant at Bach Hop Service Producing Trading Company Limited. Khue has launched her latest business initiative of producing fabrics from coffee grounds to create "green and environment-friendly" fashion trends. The "Green Economy" project has earned her an Outstanding Certificate for Startup Projects by the Institute for Sustainable Development and Digital Economy.
Khue was born into a family with a tradition of business creativity. As a young girl, she often followed her father to his fabric factory. Watching workers devote themselves to fabric-making machines has built up Khue's enthusiasm.
Realizing his daughter's devotional and sympathetic spirit, the father often talked with her about his work and dreams of managing his company to become a typical home for labourers in the fabric production and knitting industry.
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| Khue checked the fabric product's quality. |
Khue has often asked her father how to create products with different and competitive advantages to be sold in the market. Khue's father has encouraged her to research independently in her favourite fields.
She understood her father's concerns as he had to manage the company to overcome difficulties from the COVID-19 epidemic. Vietnam's fabric industry needs technological innovation to satisfy orders from Vietnam and international big fashion brands.
Khue asked her father to allow her to work at his company's R&D department after school and started with product research. Bach Hop company has a strong team of specialized engineers in knitting, dyeing, silk-printing, DTG (roll-to-roll) printing, and graphic designers with more than ten years of experience in making high-end products, from traditional knitwear (100% cotton, CVC, TC, Viscose, PE, Poly, Bamboo, Modal, Tencel, mélange ...) to lycra jacquard, dyed Viscose, French Terry, Polar Fleece, Interlock, etc. Bach Hop company is proud to be the first business in Vietnam to produce blank fabrics with the lowest shrinkage rate of ±1%, which no other fabric industry can commit to.
Khue has learned a lot from experienced engineers in the company and is devoted to researching new products. The girl often forgets time while working and has to take some coffee to be sound in mind when staying up late. She accidentally discovered that coffee grounds could be used to make fabrics. Coffee grounds were crushed into a fine powder, mixed with other materials, and processed to transform from powder to fibre into the fabric and final high-end products. Fabrics made from coffee grounds are safe for the skin due to prominent characteristics, including the ability to maximize control of body odours, absorption of sweat, thinness, lightness, coolness and UV protection of up to 98%.
Coffee grounds are not new worldwide but haven't been popular in Vietnam or utilized by Bach Hop companies. Internationally, about 100 tons of mixed fabrics with fibre made from coffee grounds are provided monthly for famous fashion brands like Puma, Nike, Hugo Boss, etc. This material has been increasingly trusted and chosen by famous global brands, making it a good opportunity for fabrics made from coffee grounds to develop in the future, including in Vietnam.
Vietnam is the third exporter of coffee in the world, and there are millions of coffee shops all over the country, from cities to remote areas, making it a rich source of raw materials for the coffee grounds-made fabric industry. In that prospect, Khue has suggested that Bach Hop's Board of Directors allow her to accomplish the project of producing fabrics from coffee grounds and then mass-producing them in the company.
From Grand World Phu Quoc, walking along the path to a beach of white sand, gold sun and green trees, tourists will find a café with the cute name of Soc Nhim (Squirrel and Hedgehog). This is a startup by the young student Nguyen Dang Thuy Khue. Tourists will be impressed with tasty organic coffee and clothes samples from "coffee fabric" by Bach Hop company displayed at the shop.
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| Soc Nhim café is a meeting place where tourists can experience organic coffee products. |
Soc Nhim café has become attractive for young people coming to Phu Quoc, making it a creative corner space. Khue said: "Soc Nhim café will always be creative with new, unique coffee formulas to attract customers. The shop uses recycled products such as coffee cups, straws and handles with unique designs."
The ambitious "coffee fabric" project is estimated to produce 500 tons of fabrics annually, with a turnover of 200.000-300.000 USD. The number is relatively modest and has room to increase compared to Bach Hop company's production capacity of 5.456 tons of fabrics per year.
In preparation for the project, Khue has also launched a project to collect coffee grounds from café on Phu Quoc island, including her own Soc Nhim, and in Ho Chi Minh City as materials to produce fabrics for environment-friendly products, contributing to increasing the quality of life in the area. The new fabric project is hoped to help Bach Hop company create more than 500 jobs in Ho Chi Minh City. Khue desires to export fabrics made from coffee grounds to international markets.
Khue has utilized Vietnam's coffee and coffee grounds to create multiple-value products to satisfy consumers' tastes: Organic coffee and "green and clean" fashion trends. Her startup project of fabrics made from coffee grounds is a good example that should be encouraged among young people in Vietnam.
