Special fruit tray attracts customers on Doan Ngo Festival

In addition to cakes, this year's Doan Ngo Festival trays also combine specialty fruits from both regions, so the selling price of over half a million VND still attracts customers.

Doan Ngo Festival - also known as the insect extermination festival - usually takes place on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month (June 22nd of the solar calendar). This year, this festival comes later because it is a leap year. In addition to main dishes such as sticky rice, duck meat, and sticky rice cakes, the Doan Ngo Festival offerings are now diverse with many segments. In particular, the offerings combining specialty fruits from both regions are very popular.

Having just finished ordering the offering tray for this year's Doan Ngo Festival, Ms. Thu in District 5 (HCMC) said she was quite satisfied even though she spent 700,000 VND on the offering tray with 13 specialties including cakes and fruits from both regions.

"This year, the stores made very eye-catching fruit trays, with special fruits included, so even though the prices are expensive, I still ordered some to worship, hoping for a prosperous mid-year Tet," said Ms. Thu.

The feast costs nearly 600,000 VND and includes 13-15 specialties of the two regions. Photo: Doan Hien — The feast costs nearly 600,000 VND and includes 13-15 specialties of the two regions. Photo: *Doan Hien*

Realizing the increasing trend of customers ordering fruit trays, Ms. Oanh - owner of a sticky rice and sweet soup establishment in District 3 - said that in addition to selling banh tro and banh u like every year, this time she also made fruit trays. Each tray includes main dishes such as sticky rice, betel, banh u, accompanied by specialties such as lychee, plum, mangosteen, hairless peach, green rice, combined with lotus and grapefruit decoration.

"In two days, I received 100 orders from customers with prices ranging from 199,000 to 700,000 VND," said Ms. Oanh.

Ms. Doan Thi Hien, owner of a full-package offering facility in Dong Da ( Hanoi ), said that compared to previous years, the prices of specialty fruits this year are cheaper, but cakes and sticky rice have increased by 10-15%. Therefore, the prices of offerings for the Doan Ngo Festival this time are 5-10% more expensive.

Currently, the offerings at Ms. Hien's store cost about 599,000 VND, including 15 specialties including cakes, fruits, and sticky rice. "Currently, 50 customers have ordered offerings for the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. It is expected that by the end of tomorrow, the number of orders may increase," Ms. Hien said.

This year, in addition to the available set trays, fruits and retail cakes are also popular with customers. In the past two days, Ms. Hien said she has sold out 3,000 tro cakes - a specialty of Bac Kan . Or rice wine and sticky rice with lotus seeds are also ordered by customers.

At traditional markets, shops selling banh u (rice cakes), sticky rice, and fruits said the market was quite busy. However, most customers ordered online and did not flock to the stores like every year.

"This year, the number of customers ordering online accounts for 50%. Therefore, in the past few days, I have had to mobilize more family members to make goods to send to customers," said Ms. Hanh, a trader at Ba Chieu market (Binh Thanh).

According to other retailers, the prices of fruits and flowers have dropped sharply this time and have not increased dramatically like in previous years. In particular, many fruits have decreased in price by 10-30% compared to the same period last year. The reason is that the supply is abundant, while consumer demand has only increased slightly and not increased sharply. In addition to the above groups of products, the market for votive paper is currently more gloomy than in previous years.

Hong Chau

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