Long Thanh cow milk specialty – Long Thanh cow milk is a famous product that is well-known to many consumers through retail points, rest stops, and large and small supermarkets. In addition to traditional fresh milk, Long Thanh pure cow milk is also used as an ingredient to make many nutritious foods and drinks for all ages such as yogurt, ice cream, various milk candies, milk cakes… Let’s explore this specialty of Dong Nai together.
The first person to raise dairy cows in Long Thanh
The dairy cow farming industry has been present in Long Thanh district since the 1980s. However, at that time, only a few households raised cows on a small scale, so the Long Thanh cow milk product was not well-known to the local people. It was the farmers who gradually developed their herds, established dairy farms, and found ways to bring the product to consumers. Among the first dairy farmers in Long Thanh, Mr. Lam Quang Tri (Binh Lam hamlet, Loc An commune), originally a physician, is considered a pioneer in developing the dairy cow farming industry in Long Thanh district.
The beginning of dairy cow farming in Long Thanh
Mr. Tri, originally from Ho Chi Minh City, moved to Long Thanh district at the end of the 1970s and worked as a physician at a commune health station. To earn extra income, he raised pigs, chickens, and later switched to raising beef cattle. Seeing that the cows had good reproduction and produced a lot of milk, Mr. Tri thought of raising dairy cows. He crossbred his 2 beef cattle with dairy cows in Ho Chi Minh City for breeding. Around 1985, he completely switched to raising dairy cows. At the peak, Mr. Tri’s family raised nearly 200 dairy cows and became the largest private dairy cow farmer in the province.
Mr. Tri sold the milk to distributors, but the prices were low and the purchasing was unstable. Mr. Tri learned how to process milk, had a mechanic make a stove system, and together with his wife, they pasteurized fresh milk, made yogurt, and sold it around the Long Thanh market. Initially, the milk products were not selling well, so Mr. Tri gave the milk as gifts to the elderly and children in the hamlet and asked for their feedback. Later on, as the number of customers increased, Mr. Tri invested in milk squeezing machines, filtering equipment, pasteurization; and at the same time, opened a milk selling point on National Highway 51 named Năm Trí cow milk.
Currently, Năm Trí dairy farm has over 70 cows in the milking period, about 30 post-milking cows. The owner has developed 5 milk selling points and dairy product outlets, supplying products to around 30 selling points within and outside the district, creating jobs for 15 workers with an average income of 5 million VND per month. In addition, his farm also provides market access for 3 households raising dairy cows in the commune with more than 30 cows. On average, his facility consumes about 600-700 liters of fresh milk daily to produce pasteurized fresh milk, yogurt, and flan cakes (a popular cake made from chicken eggs and fresh milk). The profit from the farm and selling points reaches around 600 million VND per year.
Some dairy cow-raising households in Long Thành district have also opened outlets for fresh milk and dairy products for local residents and tourists.
Long Thành dairy brand
In fact, Long Thành dairy only became widely known when Lothamilk Joint Stock Company (formerly Dong Nai Dairy Joint Venture Company) was established, collaborating with livestock households, developing farms, and setting up milk processing plants and retail outlets locally.
Long Thành dairy has been and is currently holding a leading position in providing pure fresh milk products in the Southern and Central regions market. Currently, the company supplies over 1,500 tons of various dairy products to the market on average every month.
To achieve this success, since its establishment, the company has collaborated with households, farms, and developed cattle herds according to the company’s scale and standards. In addition to investing in dairy farms in Dong Nai, the company has proactively built up raw material areas in Cu Chi (Ho Chi Minh City), Long An, Soc Trang, Lam Dong… and established purchasing stations, quality control of inputs in these raw material areas.
Lothamilk Dairy Factory – a brand of Long Thanh dairy cow
In 2018, Lothamilk officially put into operation phase 1 of a dairy processing plant using European technology with an investment capital of over 500 billion VND in Tam Phuoc Ward (Bien Hoa City). Developing nearly 10 product lines including fresh pasteurized milk with and without sugar, drinking yogurt, pasteurized fresh milk, milk crackers, milk candy, milk powder, corn milk, and brown rice milk… The product quality is increasingly improved according to international standards while still meeting the criteria of delicious, nutritious, and convenient for consumers.
Currently, the company is developing various distribution channels such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and general grocery stores. To date, Lothamilk has established over 10 rest stops, connected to nearly 20 supermarket systems, over 50 distributors, and more than 500 retail points nationwide.
Long Thanh cow’s milk today
Developed from small dairy farms, Long Thanh cow’s milk has become a familiar product to many families and tourists. With a variety of products and distribution channels, Long Thanh cow’s milk is present in almost all provinces and cities nationwide. The success of the Long Thanh cow’s milk brand today is partly due to the unique and solid market approach of the company. In the early days, to establish the brand right at “home”, the company invested in a system of Long Thanh cow’s milk rest stops on National Highway 51 passing through Long Thanh and National Highway 1A passing through Dong Nai, then expanded to link with rest stops in neighboring provinces and cities to serve local residents and tourists.
Review of Long Thanh milk
If you happen to visit Vung Tau, and stop by the Long Thanh milk station, make sure to go to the old station (on the right side when traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to Vung Tau), and not the station across the street. I also mistook the newly built station, which is owned by the same owner as the old station, but upon revisiting, I noticed it was renamed to Liên kết – Long Thành Rest Stop. I bought a bottle to drink. It didn’t taste as sweet or creamy as the Long Thanh milk I used to drink before, and after drinking it, I felt a sour taste in my mouth, thinking that the quality had decreased. Initially, I found it strange because the blue label used to indicate unsweetened milk, and the green label indicated sweetened milk. However, when I bought it, the seller handed me a blue-labeled bottle and said it had sugar, while the green one was yogurt. I thought the company had changed the design. The taste was different, so I carefully examined the bottle, which also had an image of a milk cow, similar colors to Long Thanh milk, and even the words “Long Thanh Milk”, making it almost 95% similar, which might not be noticeable to someone who doesn’t drink it regularly like me. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the manufacturer was labeled as “Healthy milk”. It was cheaper than Long Thanh milk. I saw many people buying it, some buying 5 bottles, while others buying more than 10 bottles.
How to differentiate your Long Thanh milk:
- The manufacturing company is Healthy milk, for Long Thanh milk is Lothamilk
- Healthy milk has no expiration date, with 2 lines of manufacturing date, HD and a blank space
- Healthy milk label: blue is fresh milk, green is yogurt. Lothamilk label: blue is sugar-free fresh milk, green is fresh milk WITH SUGAR.
- For those who are knowledgeable about this milk, please share your opinions to help others not be deceived. It’s really sad to go on a trip once in a while and end up buying fake products for your family
- The price on the wall for a milk cup is 10k/cup, but when paying they demand 12k/cup. The staff (wearing red-orange shirts) are extremely rude, one staff member even wanted to hit a customer because the customer complained about something wrong with the milk.
