A young couple of Nguyen Thanh Tau and Le Thi Thanh Mai, residing in Hoa Hiep Nam Ward, Lien Chieu district, Da Nang, have tinkered with recipes for nut milk with a desire to improve physical and mental health for everyone.

Tau and Mai graduated from the University of Economics, the University of Da Nang, with Business Administration degrees. After graduation, they worked in the tourism industry for a period of time.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tau (born in 1995), a founder of Salus nut milk and nutrition nut brand name at 49-51 Thai Phien Street in Hai Chau District, is consulting nutritional products for customers. Photo: MAI HIEN

Since they temporarily lost jobs due to the impact of COVID-19, the young couple have come up with the idea of ​​​​cooking nut milk to nourish their beloved ones.

In early 2020, they started a business with nut milk. After more than 2 years of doing a business, from a small online store, Tau and Mai now open a 100m² store at 49-51 Thai Phien Street in Phuoc Ninh Ward, Hai Chau District.

Experimental journey

Tau and Mai began to realise their business idea by self-studying through books and the internet about nutrition, nutritious nuts, nut milk, and machines to cook nut milk.

“At that time, the concept of nut milk was completely new to me, and Viet Nam, but it was quite popular in European countries,” said Tau.

After researching, Tau started to cook the first 10 bottles of nut milk for his family members. Then he cooked about three batches of more than 100 bottles each, and sent them to his friends to get comments. After more than 2 months, Mai and Tau sold their first bottle of nut milk.

At first, the young couple only had an online nut milk store with the brand name of ‘Anh Ba Tao’, with an initial investment of more than VND10 million. Their main customers were pregnant mothers.

Although only doing online business, professionalism is a factor that Tau and Mai always put on top. Two young people rent a space of 60m² in a small alley on Hoang Dieu Street to store raw materials and produce delicious and nutritious milk bottles.

The process of cooking nut milk is quite elaborate with such stages as soaking the nuts overnight, draining and rinsing the soaked nuts, blending the nuts with fresh water, strain the nut milk, and sweetening to taste.

To have a delicious taste, it is necessary to ensure the quality of raw materials. Seeds need to be soaked before cooking to remove toxins. Each type of nuts requires a different soaking time. Cashews need to be soaked for 1-2 hours, whilst almonds and walnuts must be soaked for 6-8 hours.

“With cashews, we take advantage of domestic raw materials. Meanwhile, walnuts and almonds must be imported from the US and Australia," Mai said.

After 7 months of launching the ‘Anh Ba Tao’ nut milk brand name, Tau and Mai realised that customers had a high demand for nutritious nuts, so they started cooking new products.

“Our initial biggest difficulty was the source of customers. In addition, our nut milk does not use preservatives, so it can only be stored for 2-3 days. Therefore, we have to measure how to produce the right quantity and ensure quality. Also, it takes us a lot of time to advise customers on how to preserve and follow them. Despite these difficulties, we realise the long-term nature of this business model, so we are still determined to pursue it", added Mai.

New brand identity

In June 2021, Tau and Mai had an idea to open a store so that customers could easily access their products. The two young people found space, trained more staff and also designed a new brand identity.

They decided to choose the ‘Salus’ brand name with a desire to target not only pregnant mothers but also young people aged 23-25.

The young people explained the reason for choosing the brand name of ‘Salus’ is that Salus was the Roman personification of health and well being, and came to be very closely associated with the Greek goddess Hygieia, the daughter of the healing god Asclepius. Therefore, the meaning of the name Salus includes all the values ​​that Mai and Tau want to bring to customers.

Currently, Salus is providing customers with 5 types of whole nut milk and 10 types of mixed-nut milk.

Among them, almond - walnut milk is the product that Mai and Tau put the most enthusiasm. This type of milk takes them the most time to produce a recipe that satisfies customers. Besides, Salus also sells other nutritional products such as Greek yogurt, organic rice noodles, etc.

To date, Mai and Tau have poured more than VND500 million into the nut milk business model, and the Salus brand name is also starting its journey to reach out.

“In addition to providing customers with quality milk products, we also want to accompany customers to create a healthy lifestyle. A small change every day is enough to create a positive wave for the community," emphasised Mai.

Reporting by KHANH QUYEN – Translating by M.DUNG