Earlier, girdle cake is made of a kind of rice ground into flour and steamed… Indeed, manual production of girdle cake both takes many stages and gives poor end-product. However, according to a modern process of making girdle cake, end-product will reach high quality and large quantity. With the manual process, a worker will only manufacture about 1,000 girdle cakes per day but with modern machine, he will offer about 30,000 cakes per day. Since using modern machine for girdle cake production, Thanh An girdle cake has increased it capacity.

  Nguyen Thi Gai introduces an automatic girdle cake production line. The girdle cake is a popular food for Dau Tieng district’s Thanh An commune. The locality has tens of manual girdle cake workshops. Thanh An girdle cake daily goes across provinces of Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, HCMC… and brings an income for many generations in the commune. 

However, like other traditional craft villages, Thanh An girdle cake did not meet rising demand. For many consecutive years, local girdle cake lost its position in the face of modern production lines at other girdle cake workshops in the HCMC’s Cu Chi district. Making girdle cake manually takes many steps and gives low capacity, quality and income.

Facing the situation, Nguyen Thi Gai, the owner of Danh Le girdle cake workshop, urged other owners to set up a girdle cake cooperative. Since 2000, Gai along with capital sources contributed by the other owners has invested in modern production lines to develop Thanh An girdle cake. In 2011, the first girdle cake batch produced by modern machines appeared, creating an important turning point for Thanh An girdle cake village.  

Initial encouraging result

At present, Thanh An girdle cake has appeared across the Southeastern provinces and become famous, thanks its fragrance.

Thus, Danh Le girdle cake cooperative of Thanh An commune has become a typical cooperative in renovating technology and winning efficiency in Dau Tieng district. Every member of the cooperative has enjoyed a VND2mil profit per month.

Danh Le girdle cake cooperative has presently offered jobs for 15 workers with an average income of VND3.3mil per month.

Dream for development

According to Nguyen Thi Gai, Thanh An girdle cake will have a trademark in attachment to Thanh An land. At that time, Thanh An girdle cake will be distributed widely, bringing a better income for local people.

She said that the biggest difficulty of the cooperative is a main dependence on sunlight. Therefore, workers daily must monitor weather forecast to produce the cake. She added that she was wanting to possess a girdle cake dryer to take initiative for her production.

Reported by K.Vinh – Translated by A.C