A small Vietnamese village has its own spirulina production facility being ran by a resident.

The Mekong Spirulina was built by Van Huu Tai in the hamlet of Tan Nhon in Vinh Long province, Vietnam.

Van said that he thought of culturing the nutritious algae in his hometown to bring benefits to his neighbour and help advance science and technology to the province.

Footage shows Van demonstrating how the facility produces spirulana from pools and tested its quality in an indoor lab beside it.

He said: 'I see that developing this spirulina culture in my hometown will bring many benefits to the people and the province's science and technology industry.

'Firstly, this algae has a very high nutritional content, so you can add it to food to increase its nutritional value. It has a sustainable model that does not consume a lot of resources such as electricity and water for sustainable development in the future.

'Furthermore, this algae also has many medicinal properties. These are very good antioxidants and anti-cancer agents.'

After graduating, Van studied how to culture spirulina and went back home to set it up.

He said: 'After graduating, I saw this model could also be developed in my locality. So, I took seeds from the university to normalize and raise them here based on Mekong wave production.

'Initially, the biggest difficulty I encountered was the source of documents, the source of scientific documents about this algae. It grows in Vietnam but we must do more research ourselves.'

The start-up, he added, encountered many challenges along the way before the facility stabilised.

He said: 'I failed the test, I tried again, and after a few years of research and development, I could tame it under the water environment here, and I could tame the minerals that are hard to find.

'Currently, the protein level of Vigracera algae is about 65 per cent, equivalent to other Japanese algae types. Income can be high because you don't have to bear many investment costs. it's relatively low, and during the farming process, you won't get infected.

'When farming algae, you only invest once. In the mineral culture environment, you continue to take the water source when harvesting. If you continue to culture that environment, you only add a small amount.

'Generally, the initial cost may be high, but in the long run, it will be low. If the productivity you earn can be stable, the profit you can achieve will be high.'

Van said they could turn the spirulina into powder, tablets, and bread or sell them fresh.

He said: 'Nutritional bread for children or the elderly, its market position is mainly in the northern provinces, in Ho Chi Minh City, and Binh Duong.

'The brand is currently in waves. Mekong has many scientific and technical awards, such as winning second prize in the Tran Dai Nghia Science and Technology Contest.

'In the upcoming book of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I hope that my products can reach further, can go beyond the territory of Vietnam, can go abroad.

'I can put my product out there to increase the value of algae and confirm that Vietnamese products are not inferior from other countries in the world.'