Among countless choices, we chose the reed of our homeland.

After more than three years of research and development, Mana.st has today become a company specializing in producing straws that replace single-use plastic straws — such as reed straws, paper straws, bamboo straws and other biological straws — in Vietnam, with a vision of becoming one of the world's leading pioneers in supplying Reed technology. Alongside its business aspirations, the company also nurtures a desire to create positive values for the community and society, in which people are the most sustainable resource of all.

With a love for the sustainable, zero-waste industry that dates back to her Master's studies in the United Kingdom, Ms. Đinh Thúy Phương and her associates cherished the desire to make use of the Reed plant so familiar to their home region of Quốc Oai, in order to bring not only a new livelihood to local farmers but also to create clean, green products that are good for customers' health — turning this plant, once considered a waste by-product, into a business product that is both economically beneficial and good for the environment and consumers' health. Taking part in PlastiNOvation (organized within the framework of the LSPP project) helped Mana.st carry the reputation of its Reed Straw product very far; the company won the Quý quân prize (third place) in the contest and excellently received a special sponsorship worth 10,000 USD from judge Huy Minh.

Choosing to return to Vietnam to start her business and to nurture the aspiration of bringing prosperity to her homeland, Ms. Phương spent time attached to drug-rehabilitation centers in a special role: a volunteer teacher. That period gave her a deeper understanding of the hardship and suffering of the post-rehabilitation process, and of the shortage of organizations and companies willing to take on workers with a history of drug addiction. With all her tolerance and sincere care, she chose to believe in the potential of this workforce; kindness became the driving force for her to build Mana.st.

Through free classes held every Saturday, Mana.st hopes to create a proper training process and a closed selection pipeline that can both recruit staff for Mana.st and provide an open learning environment for the trainees, so that they can conveniently equip themselves with full skills to proactively seek suitable work — so that they can once again stand strongly on their own two feet. This is the very core value that gave rise to Mana.st!

Throughout more than 11 years since returning to Vietnam, together with more than 3 years researching the Reed plant, Ms. Phương has always held firm to one conviction: promoting the development of a circular economy in Vietnam.

Not only that, thanks to the prize money from the PlastiNOvation contest, Mana.st completed the registration of a patent to protect the intellectual property of the product “Reed Milk Tea”, a completely new idea developed from the success of the Reed Straw project. Pioneering the introduction of the Reed plant into a product already familiar to consumers — milk tea — Mana.st successfully created the first unique, purely Vietnamese Reed Milk Tea beverage in our country. This is precisely what helped the enterprise successfully launch on the market just three months after introducing the product — a huge step of success for a young enterprise like Mana.st.

It can be said that the success achieved at the PlastiNOvation “arena” brought potential opportunities and at the same time became a firm stepping stone for Mana.st to reap success: in just the two months of August and September 2022, Ms. Phương and her “child” Mana.st appeared on more than 40 press outlets and 4 central and local television channels, while excellently winning 6 prestigious international awards.

For Mana.st, PlastiNOvation is not merely a local contest, but also a contest that tends to keep pace with the future, one of stature that needs to be replicated across the region. The LSPP project is gradually building a vast media and information network, not only spreading the importance of the circular economy and plastic-waste-reduction initiatives but also keeping in step with the new trends of the era in both the domestic and international markets. Despite facing many challenges, Ms. Phương and Mana.st always remain persistent, striving relentlessly out of their conviction and love for their homeland.

At first I thought Sunshine Holdings' interest would stop at the figure of 10,000 USD, but when I had the chance to talk directly and further with Mr. Minh at the Sunshine Holdings office, the cooperation promised many more “acts” than that.
— Ms. Phương, founder of Mana.st