It is a long journey to bring rice noodle abroad, showing the craftsmen’s steadfast commitment to preserving the traditional craft in line with innovation, creativity and product standardization to meet both domestic and importing market demands.

Local resident in Thu Duong village dries noodles.

We returned the craft village on the busiest time of the year. We saw the drying machines running smoothly in the 1,000- square metre workshop of Hien Phuoc Chu rice noodle production and trade cooperative.

The workers were hurriedly checking the product quality and packing for export. The packages and cartons printed with foreign scripts were stacked in long rows awaiting to be loaded on trucks.

While checking the shipment, Hoang Thi Thu Hien, the Cooperative Director told us about the first batch of goods exported to Russia in 2022. That time her family seemed to “lived and breathe with noodles”.

For months, her family had sent samples for testing, designed packages and finalized documentation then waited for response from foreign partners.

After Russia, their products have been exported to the US, Canada and other markets. In order to meet the partners’ increasingly strict standards, the cooperative has bought a modern system with close production procedure and strict control of food safety.

In line with traditional products, the cooperative has created brown - rice noodle and five-coloured noodles from gac fruit, turmeric, butterfly pea flower and purple sweet potato.

Besides, they cooperate with 20 households in Thu Duong village to establish a continuous production chain, which is fully capable of meeting large-scale orders.

The cooperative earned a revenue of some 12 billion VND (460,000 USD) last year. Since beginning this year, the cooperative supplies more than 60 tonnes of noodles each month to the market, including 30 percent for export. It creates stable jobs for 60 to 70 local workers.

Preserving traditional craft

The production and packaging line for Chu rice noodles at Hien Phuoc Chu Rice Noodle Production, Trading and Consumption Cooperative.

“Nam Duong is blessed by nature. This locality is home to many specialties like orange, lychee, longan, pomelo, jujube and especially noodle making craft”, Vice Chairman of Nam Duong communal people’s committee Vu Duy Giap said with pride.

The commune is also home to 22 cooperatives producing rice noodles with an average output of 16 tonnes per month. Besides, there are 250 noodle making households with an average productivity of 5 tonnes per month.

The noodle productivity reached 22,000 tonnes in 2025, gaining a revenue of over 550 billion VND (21.08 million USD), contributing to increasing the local total production value to 2.892 trillion VND (110.8 million USD). The poverty rate decreased to 2.62 percent.

It is honourable that people in Nam Duong still preserves the traditional craft amid the wave of industrialization when they have actively embraced innovation to keep pace with the market.

Several production facilities invested in modern machinery but they still remain traditional know-how to create signature flavour of Chu rice noodle.

To secure the reputation and product quality, every stage of production is carried out with utmost care. All steps including selecting rice, soaking and fermenting, steaming flour into sheets, drying and cutting into noodle strings require experience and attention to details.

In Thu Duong, people share with each other craft making secrets and together improve production procedures to create the best quality products.

When one household is short-handed, others will give a hand. Senior craftsmen pass down their experience with care and dedication to the younger generation.

Such solidarity and strong bond help the craft village to endure and thrive across generations. For Thu Duong people, preservation of the traditional craft is the work all villagers.

The true value of this special product does not only come from the water sources and good rice but also from the community spirit and cooperation in production chain.

We left Nam Duong when the afternoon sunlight began to fade. What remained with us was the image of artisans carefully turning each drying rack of noodles, tying each bundle neatly before packaging.

Amid the pace of modern life, they remain steadfast in preserving their craft, as if safeguarding a part of the very soul of their homeland.

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