Bhutan Noodle, a home-made noodle business based in Samtse, is gaining popularity in the district. 43-year-old Bhimla Tamang is the owner.
Despite being a new entrant into the market dominated by imported noodles, Bhimla Tamang earns about Nu 80,000 a month from the sale of her noodles that she and her workers make.
Bhimla started the business after she came across a noodle factory in India. “I thought why not I try doing something like that on a smaller scale at home,” she said.
“So, I bought a small machine and got started. The business is running well. Since I am not that experienced in the field, I have hired three helpers from India apart from my Bhutanese employees.”
While the business has proved to be lucrative, it is hard work. Bhimla’s day begins at 5 am in the morning. Every day, she works for over 10 long hours, starting off with making dough, then flattening it with the help of a machine and drying it.
The final work is cutting the dried noodles into same sizes and packing them.
She and her workers make 350 packets of noodles daily. A bigger packet sells at Nu 35, while the smaller is priced ten ngultrum less.
“It’s not an easy work,” Bhimla said. “The process is long and time consuming.”
The biggest challenge is drying the noodles. Currently, Bhimla dries them in an enclosed room with the help of heater and fan. It takes two days to get the noodles dried nicely.
She plans to buy a dryer soon to make the job easier and to enhance production.
Besides Samtse, Bhimla’s noodles have found markets in Thimphu and Phuentshogling as well.
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