BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION

A1. Social mantra one-liner

Vherbs – Healthy tea for nature conservation and sustainable ethnic people’s livelihood.

VHERBS offers many product types of snow shantea, including Ancient Shantea mixed with flowers, fruits, herbs to meet the consuming trends of the young tea gurus with light fresh taste, natural aroma. VHERBS also customizes our tea products as gifts presented to business partners and family

By employing innovative manufacturing techniques, VHERBS has special techniques for producing different types of snow shantea to create the distinctive flavor of each kind, fitting different customers’ preferences.

More importantly, our products are free from sugar and made from sustainable tea production practices with natural ingredients to generate numerous health benefits including boosting the immune system, boosting productivity, beautifying skin, reducing stress and chronic diseases, therefore VHERBS offers a sustainable solution to the social issues of unhealthy beverage consumption, orienting customers to follow the sustainable production and health-conscious consumption trend.

Lastly, through the sales of our products, VHERBS also contribute to preserve the traditional occupation of harvesting snow shan leaves and enhancing the impoverished livelihood of disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in Ha Giang by providing efficient harvest training sessions and fair trading practices to help them gain greater income from these tea trees

B. Business model

Target customers

B2. Economic value for customers

• Natural healthy tea beverages as an alternative to sugar-sweetened drinks with numerous health benefits including fighting oxidants, helping lose weight, boosting oral and dental health, preventing cancer, reducing and risk of chronic metabolism disorder diseases. Unlike traditional tea, our tea products are non-caffeine. 
• Diverse and various product types different prices and usage to cater for customer’s changing needs
• State-of-the-art design and packaging to gift customer needs

VHERBS focuses our economic value propositions on the development of Shan Tuyet – a specialty tea only in some special tea production area in Vietnam. Based on that, there are three main competitive advantages contributing to the high demand for VHERBS products: 

• organic tea brand with the Fair Trade certificate;
• cultivation of the most valuable tea specialty – Shan Tuyet
• focusing on the herbal ingredients in the tea instead of using scents, or plain loose leaves with the innovative packaging.

CHANNELS

• Official website: https://vherbs.vn/
• Retail stores like Lotte Vietnam Shopping Mall Corporation, Aeonmall
• International market fairs, exhibitions
• Social media platforms: Facebook, zalo
• E-commerce marketplaces: Ladada, Shopee, Tiki, Sendo, Bachhoaxanh

Customer relationship methods are vital to the company as wells

To foster long-term customer relationships built on trust and satisfaction, VHERBS adopts a customer-centric approach. We offer self-service options  and a strong customer service team still available for more complex inquiries. Building customer intimacy involves understanding your audience’s needs and preferences. Leverage customer relationship management (CRM) tools to personalize communication, offer targeted discounts to cater to different consumption habits. 

TARGET SOCIAL IMPACTS 

• Unhealthy Beverage Issues:

And by applying the 5 Whys model, we realized  the root causes were the excessive marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children, which increases their preference for these products. VHERBS aims to address these social issues by providing a natural healthy beverages as an alternative to sugar-sweetened drinks 

• Unsustainable farming practice and impoverished livelihood of local communities in Ha Giang:

According to the statistical data of Ha Giang online newspaper,  in In  Hoang Su Phi, district, Ha Giang, the commune has 355 households of ethnic minority groups living below the poverty line in Ha Giang with over 1,700 people. They include five ethnic minority groups, who live mainly from harvesting snowshan leaves

Due to old-fashioned farming and processing techniques, their tea was sold at only VNĐ5,000-6,000 (just over 20 US cent at the current exchange rate) per kg of fresh tea buds, leading to a modest production value of VNĐ10-12 million per hectare each year. This harvesting practice leads to a loss of income for local impoverished communities.

• The ultimate root cause of these problems is the lack of understanding about proper harvesting practices and economic values of snowshan trees among ethnic minorities leading to a loss of income from harvesting these leaves. 

VHERBS tries to address this by providing training sessions of tea cultivating, caring, harvesting, and processing techniques under organic standards as well as providing equipment and supplies to promote sustainable harvesting techniques and enhance the economic value of snowshan trees. This approach ensures the preservation of snow shan tea and help local communities gain greater income from these trees.

UN Goals

SOCIAL IMPACTS 

B4. Feasibility KEY RESOURCES

OUR TEAM MEMBERS

OUR KEY RESOURCES:

 

KEY PARTNERS:

• Finho Tea Cooperative in Ha Giang province directly hire and train local harvesters in sustainable and ethical practices of collecting the fair snow shan leaves under organic standard. We will buy the these leaves from these cooperative with a fair price ensure steady supply of  Snow Shantea leaves for manufacturing
• Retail store/markets: like Lotte Vietnam Shopping Mall Corporation, Aeon Mall helping us distribute our products
• Authority figures: to uphold quality control and to monitor our harvesting, processing and transporting processes with great scrutiny
• Non- government organization, local authority: to provide training sessions of organic tea production supporting ethnic minority groups. Through us, they can increase their brand  identity while creating social impacts

• Coach and experts:  we collaborated with university coaches to  promote our business and provide funding or expert consulting sessions for us while we give them reward benefits and reputations

 

B5. Profitability revenue stream

In general, VHerbs’ indexes are predicted to be stable, with a growth trend in the next 5 years due to the inevitable trend of demand for food that is friendly to user health and environmental protection.

• REVENUE STREAM
• COST STRUCTURE

By selling products, we’re not only gaining profits but we can also use our profit gained to reinvest in economic and social impacts:

It is certain that our social-oriented activities complement our profit-oriented ones

B6. ESG integration

• Environmental impacts

The products produced are mainly yellow snow shan tea and sun-dried tea sold to the Chinese market, so the price is not high. Recently, Chinese traders have stepped up the purchase of yellow tea at high prices and requested very simple products, causing a lack of raw materials for production cooperatives in the district. In the long term, improper harvesting techniques due to providing raw materials for yellow tea (usually taking a long time to harvest, some households even harvest branches without leaving waiting leaves) will greatly affect the productivity and quality of the fields. tea.

Faced with the above difficulties, VHERBS have actively supported people in implementing manual measures such as pruning, creating canopy and placing root bags to prevent erosion so that tea trees can grow, carry out additional planting where the tea area can be expanded.

 

• Social impacts:

Revenue from tea products has contributed to improving and enhancing the lives of many households in the commune. This is a plant that helps people alleviate hunger and reduce poverty. 

Meanwhile, Shan Tuyet tea is mainly only harvested and sold by people in raw form with low economic value. The root cause is also due to the lack of large leading enterprises investing in conservation and development from raw material areas, to processing technology to produce final tea products, forming economic chains of tea.

An ounce of Shan Tuyet tea costs more than 1 million VND, 22 times more than an ounce of regular tea buds. However, to exploit the value of this specialty Shan Tuyet tea line, there is still much work to be done from investing in infrastructure, processing technology, and building a synchronous chain link in the raw material areas.

C1. Crowdfunding/crowdsourcing campaign

VHERBS implemented Pre-order Crowdfunding over the past months. We have established a loyal customer base and continued to invite consumers to pre-order our tea products 

Our campaign was to attract backers. The strategies below were applied by VHERBS

VHerbs’ results:

• 100 preorder of our products from customer both domestically and internationally
• 10 backers
• 8900 followers on Facebook
• 50000 reach on Facebook

BACKERS	WHO ARE THEY?	WHY SHOULD THEY MAKE THE CONTRIBUTION	WHAT DO WE OFFER IN EXCHANGE FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION	HOW DO THEY DELIVER THEIR CONTRIBUTION?
LONG -TERM BACKERS	FARMERS/HARVESTERS IN Ha Giang province	Financial struggles caused by limited customer access have made farmers receptive to our vision of revitalizing the herbal tea market. This shared goal creates a strong foundation for a collaborative partnership.	We provide them with stable incomes and flexible work conditions	They help us with developing new product lines and designs that best-fit customers’ changing preferences, teaching employees
	CUSTOMERS (individuals, businesses/ firms)	Our innovative, healthy products resonate with customers who appreciate our commitment to quality and share our passion for creating positive social change.	We’re building a strong community of farmers who share our vision for a thriving herbal tea market. Financial limitations caused by limited customer reach make them receptive to our unique healthy products and our commitment to quality. They’re inspired by our mission to create social impact.	We offer them a win-win situation: high-quality, healthy products with personalized assistance and discounts, convenient purchasing options, and opportunities to promote their products through our social media platforms.
	ORGANIZATIONS: Ministry of Planning and Investment, United Nations Economic and Social Development Organization for the Asia-Pacific region	ethnic minority groups are suffering the impoverished livelihood due to a loss of income from unsustainable shan tea leaves harvesting, w national authority want to support their livelihoods by partnering with us to organize training sessions of sustainable harvesting practices	Utilize their collaborated effort received and develop our harvesting techniques toward sustainable farming practices, promote and conserve the value of those trees	They collaborated with us to organize training sessions on reproductive health, food safety, and organic tea production for women in the ethnic minority groups
	NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES( FTU, FIIS)	These universities aim at creating new business ideas in Vietnam. They are eager to help social entrepreneurs (businesses aimed at helping society). The universities also have programs to support startups created by their former students. This helps promote the universities as places that produce successful graduates.	Our achievements in startup competitions builds a good reputation for the universities and spreads enthusiasm for social startups among their students. We also help the universities with public relations and offer internship opportunities at our businesses to their students.	They help promote our business and provide funding or expert consulting sessions for us. The universities can also give us access to facilities, equipment for product research, and assist with conducting market research within their networks.
STRATEGIC BACKERS & PARTNERS	MARKETING & MEDIA: online Vietnam magazine	Our inspiring story and positive impact will draw customers to them.	Use their paid services & promote their business reputations	Proomote our brand on their platform : create plans, and publish articles to boost our business. VHERBS featured in an online magazine
	SUPPLIERS: Finho Tea Cooperate in Ha Giang province	We’re more than just a supplier – we’re long-term partners. By working with us, suppliers gain not only a reliable business relationship but also the chance to contribute to a social cause, strengthening their positive public image.	We go beyond typical transactions by offering bulk purchases, which translates to economic advantages for our suppliers. This creates a stable income stream and strengthens their position in the market, all while promoting their brand image through our association.	Provide high-quality materials and offer volume discounts
	LOGISTICS		Use their paid services & promote their business reputations	Streamline our supply chain by providing customs expertise and collaborating on efficient shipping processes.
	DISTRIBUTORS: Lotte Vietnam Shopping Mall Corporation, Aeonmall		Win-win for distributors: high-quality products, profit sharing, and image boost.	Distributors become our partners, spreading our high-quality products, attracting customers, and promoting both Vietnamese tradition and our brand.

 VHERBS and FINHO Cooperative have organized training sessions on reproductive health, food safety, and organic tea production for women in the highland areas of FINHO Cooperative with accompanying partners including :

• BILL & Menila Gate

• United Nations Economic and Social Development Organization for the Asia-Pacific region
• Ministry of Planning and Investment
• FIIS, Foreign Trade University

Organic Shan Tuyet Tea with lotus blossom by Vherbs is an excellent choice for People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City to give as present

Recently in May 20th VHerbs attended international market fair like THAIFEX ANUGA 2024

VHerbs has featured in online news and magazine

C2. Learning curve