News & Events · Green Business Matching · 4 Nov 2026
Nấm Ông 5: a biology master's graduate who gave up a VND 20 million salary to grow "monkey head" mushrooms on rubber sawdust in Lạc Dương
Nguyễn Minh Thuận studied biology teaching at Đà Lạt University, wrote his master's thesis on shiitake, then went to work for a shiitake company and the Tây Nguyên Institute of Biology on a salary of around VND 20 million a month. During a routine check of mushroom strains he came across an odd, round, white fungus: lion's mane mushroom, also known as monkey head mushroom, prized for its medicinal value, which in Vietnam was available almost only as dried or frozen imports. He quit and opened a 650 m² workshop in Đạ Nhim commune, Lạc Dương district.
GBM NetworkĂn Chay TV
AnchayTV · Official media partner of Green Business Matching Green business stories 21/35 from Green Business Matching Day Vietnam, 4 November 2026. Original on gbm.network ↗
Công ty TNHH Nấm Ông 5 (Ông 5 Mushroom Co., Ltd.) · Đạ Nhim, Lạc Dương, Lâm Đồng · ong5mushroom.com
"In purely economic terms, lion's mane brings in more than some other varieties," he told the newspaper Nông nghiệp & Môi trường in 2022, when the workshop was yielding 120–150 kg of mushrooms a day and fresh lion's mane sold for VND 120,000–190,000 a kilo.
Shiitake sold by the solar terms
By 2024 the farm covered about 6,000 m², employed 15 people, worked with six partner households, two of them from ethnic minority communities, and held a supply contract for 80 kg of dried lion's mane a month. The mushroom substrate blocks are made from rubber-wood sawdust from Bình Thuận, with no fertiliser and no pesticides; spent blocks go home with the farmers to be composted for their coffee gardens. Ông 5 also makes large 40 cm substrate blocks, something very few producers in Vietnam can do, and names its shiitake lines after the solar terms: Lập Xuân, Lập Hạ, Lập Thu, Lập Đông (the onset of spring, summer, autumn and winter). Ông 5 shiitake carries OCOP certification and is cited as a flagship OCOP product of Đạ Nhim commune. Beyond shiitake and lion's mane there are golden oyster, white beech and pink oyster mushrooms, plus dried and processed mushrooms. Their slogan: "Giving health, giving love."
At Green Business Matching Day
Mushrooms are a familiar source of plant protein in the vegetarian cooking of both Vietnam and India. Nấm Ông 5 was at Lumi Hub on the morning of 04.11.2026 in the farm produce and natural ingredients group.
Nấm Ông 5 is one of the 21 sponsors of the programme.
At the recognition ceremony that closed the programme, Nấm Ông 5 was honoured by the organisers together with the other 20 sponsors, witnessed by Mr. Mohan Ramesh Anand (Founder & CEO, Canopus Group), Mr. Thao Le (Founder, AnChay.TV) and Mr. Nguyễn Tiến Tuyến (Founder & CEO, Chay Vietnam).
Green Business Matching Day Vietnam is co-organised by INCHAM with Canopus, AnChay.TV and Chay Vietnam, with the support of the Consulate General of India in Ho Chi Minh City, Ministry of External Affairs of India.
Based on material provided by the company; compiled by the organisers of Green Business Matching Day Vietnam as a gift to the businesses that joined the day.
