Discarded bamboo leaves, exported to foreign countries to collect a lot of money

Along with banana leaves and eagle leaves, fresh and dried bamboo leaves are being purchased by many small traders to export to other countries as packaging materials for cakes and food packages at very low prices.
On the online market and online sales groups, many small traders openly buy the bowl of bamboo leaves, also known as Buong leaves, in unlimited quantities. This is a wild plant, grown a lot in the highlands and plains.

Mr. Tran Van Hai from Lang Son said that for the past few years, his family has specialized in purchasing, preliminarily processing and refining all kinds of cake wrapping leaves. In the past, people only took bamboo to make their house, cook, make firewood, make cakes and leave the leaves behind. But in the past few years, fresh bamboo leaves have been picked up by many people, bought and sold to traders who export to Taiwan for 10,000 VND/kg fresh bamboo leaves and 40,000 VND/kg dried bamboo leaves. Eight degree bamboo leaves are purchased and exported to Taiwan Đài “Myself and my family never thought that bamboo leaves could be sold abroad. It was not until a contact to buy bamboo leaves for traditional cake packages in Taiwan made me know that bamboo leaves could be sold and exported to foreign countries. From there, my family went to get bamboo leaves to sell. When the collection is not enough, hire more workers and advertise online to buy bamboo leaves in other localities in any quantity, “said Mr. Hai. According to Mr. Hai, with fresh bamboo leaves, he buys them for 7,000-10,000 VND/kg. As for dried bamboo leaves, he buys them for 35,000-40,000 VND/kg. All must be octagonal bamboo leaves (also known as Buong). The weights of bamboo leaves are purchased to ensure the quality criteria, the leaves must be large, not torn, still green and absolutely not yellow. Each leaf is about 38-40cm long, 8cm wide or more. “Bamboo is very different from ordinary bamboo leaves. They are much larger in size. When bought, fresh bamboo leaves will be exposed to the sun for about 2 days. The leaves are then counted and clamped onto a bamboo stick. At this time, dry clean, bring bamboo leaves into the oven to dry and then sort and pack,” Hai said. The bamboo leaves that are completely cleaned by natural and chemical-free methods will be exported to Taiwan to be used as packaging materials for cakes, food packages, etc., and are loved by the people of this country due to its taste delicious and long lasting. “The type of cake that the Taiwanese side often wraps with bamboo leaves is like Vietnamese chung cake. However, because it is wrapped with bamboo leaves, the cake has a characteristic aroma. In addition, the type of cake wrapped from this leaf is very easy to peel, keeps for a long time and does not go stale as quickly as seaweed and banana leaves. From the end of April to October of the solar calendar every year is the autumn to buy eight degrees of bamboo leaves. Therefore, many personal facebook groups go to groups to sell and buy fresh and dried bamboo leaves in unlimited quantities. There, the atmosphere was jubilant because many bamboo growers in different places asked about the purchase price as well as the instructions for collecting and transporting fresh and dried bamboo leaves. For long-term business cooperation, all establishments that register to sell fresh and dried bamboo leaves Mr. Hai come to the place to collect and check. “I have to go down to the place to instruct the individual establishments that collect bamboo leaves to ensure that the leaves are not torn, beautiful green color and especially large. Come to the place to see the specific item once. Next time, they just do that, then I decide to buy, avoid wasting both parties’ time, “he said. Currently in Yen Bai, Bac Giang, Thanh Hoa, Soc Son – Hanoi… there are a lot of people growing bamboo and poplar trees. They only use the tree and leave the leaves empty. Therefore, he went to teach how to collect leaves and now they become agents, helping his establishment to buy fresh and dried bamboo leaves up to a few kilos/day in the locality.