it is kind of creepy right now I have a whole bunch of their heads just staring directly right up at me oh gone one quick and it was over this is a crocodile farm and it's the core of a burgeoning industry that's making millions for people all over Vietnam [Music] how long have you had this crocodile farm for yeah near Farmers have been raising crocodiles here for decades but only recently has Vietnam really begun to make big money and that's thanks to be core shipped in the way things operate again it has a reptile taste
yeah I don't think you would ever complain about that oh [Music] we're going to get into exactly how they're doing it why it's worth it but first it's feeding time 100 little baby crocodiles here around about 1 year old they come first to this facility at around 6 months for the purposes of this meat and leather farm this is how they start out [Music] so these little guys as I'm told eat nothing but chicken and man does that look like a lot of chicken that they're bringing out and these little guys are hungry there's something
almost cute about a baby crocodile or maybe it's just baby anything things but once these guys start to eat you witness that Primal Predator within utter chaos of rubs a frenzied struggle as they VI for chicken frames how much do these guys eat every day and how much longer are these crocodiles going to be like this before you turn them into meat or leather right so these guys are just sort of waiting for an order is that correct and after the youngsters have fed I turn around and I met with the sight of what was
an empty river bank now cra Ed with crocodiles staring intently at me as the keeper moves with the chickens to the opposite end of the enclosure whistling along the way it triggers the predatory Instinct they swiftly shift their focus racing to where they know their next meal awaits and I find that there's something profoundly unsettling about the calculated intelligence in their expressionless gazes these guys knew exactly what was going down guys living in Vietnam understand the language isn't just practical it's the key to True cultural immersion it allows me to laugh along with locals and
capture the rich kind of stories that I'm often sharing here on this YouTube channel the issue though is that my Vietnamese is far from fluent and I really haven't been improving for a long time but with Rosetta Stone who's sponsoring this video I've been really getting back on track and finally making progress again you see honestly I've been stuck with functional but really clunky Vietnamese for what seems like forever I generally just don't have time for regular language learning classes anymore especially with the amount of travel that I do they're expensive they're timec consuming and
scheduling is a complete Nightmare and because of this my language learning Journey it kind of stagnated a long time ago but that's all been changing thanks to Rosetta Stone that platform is entirely immersive you learn by aligning audio from native speakers with matching visuals engaging in interactive stories and practicing authentic conversations it's the complete opposite of the kind of boring repetitive memorization stuff that experiened in other apps my favorite feature is the audio recognition tool which just ensures that your pronunciation is perfect and it really gives you the confidence to use it in [Music] public
wow this app is the perfect travel companion if I'm in a place that doesn't have Wi-Fi I can just download the lessons with their audio companion tool and I'm able to just learn on the go from pretty much anywhere so I've teamed up with Rosetta Stone to bring you an exclusive deal of over 60% off their lifetime subscriptions that includes all 25 languages so you can continue to learn for your entire life no renewals to worry about so check out the link in the description if you want to get started today are they still used
for leather or are these for breeding purposes cool I really like that it's sort of for educational purposes that they're keeping these guys around it is kind of creepy right now I have a whole bunch of their heads just staring directly right up at me oh there we go gone it's wild to see these kind of dinosaurs without sort of a response I'm not going to lie it's kind of creepy incredible animals when you see them up close wow owned by chuong a former caretaker at saon zoo this Farm reflects his deep experience with exotic
animals near the farm is divided into three sections a juvenile raising area where crocodiles are grown until they are 2 years old and then processed for meat and for leather a breeding area home to larger crocodiles responsible for future generations and a retirement area where a few select ancient Crocs some over a century old spend their final days wow 500 [Applause] Kos wow that's incredible so on both sides of us here we have some incredibly old crocodiles speaking with chuong it's clear to me that he cares deeply about these animals and I'm quickly convinced about
the importance of farms such as this [Music] one for it's really compelling to me that these animals are raised in such a Humane environment and it's uh you know it's really cool I like the music itself it sounds nice here they think carefully about the state of the enclosures and the animal well-being hung's Farm participates in Vietnam's restocking program releasing a portion of their bread crocodiles back into the wild at various national parks and it's the availability of commercially produced skins from farms like these that have all but eradicated the demand for wild poach skins
in Vietnam as they're both cheaper and of a far higher quality here why is it that this is so important to you [Music] and the farm here doesn't Just Produce crocodile skins and meat it's also at the Forefront of a medical Innovation utilizing peptides and collagen extracted from the crocodile bones to develop trial phase medicines these treatments are primarily aimed at combating bone diseases especially in children what's special about the crocodile bone that makes it ideal for this purpose as a part of the facility that they have here is like a school or a training
center for kids with various kinds of bone diseases that they hoping that some of the research and the products that they're developing can have some beneficial effects over time on this kids the current value of a farm like this lies though in the worth of crocodile skins and meat which brings substantial economic benefits to Vietnam historically the bulk of this value was realized overseas with Vietnam producing just the raw materials but lacking the expertise to manufacture the final products however that is changing really fast and we're going to get into it but first it's time
to see how things are on the meat side of the equation today we're preparing crocodile spring rolls deep fried croc in breadcrumbs and the classic bar barbecued crocodile meat we're taking on a cut of coc tail to begin with it's thoroughly tenderized then scored in a cross-hatch Mana we add a little salt pepper barbecue sauce before it gets coated in egg crumbed and deep fried it then rests for a little as we heat up some garlic and onion in butter within the water a bit more pepper is added along with some lime juice and we
then add the snidle back into the Heat [Music] finally we're doing up some barbecue with various sources being combined into a marinade the meat is stirred the Cal Fired Grill is fired up and we get to [Music] grilling so this is the final product in terms of the food side of things I've never actually had crocodile before I've had a few semi- related species maybe I've had Guana I've had the green turtle in Australia which was kind of tragic but very delicious the main thing that I remember I've got to admit from both of those
creatures was the fat which was absolutely delicious but I think either crocodile is a very lean creature or that that's not exactly how they've cooked it here and that this has a distinctly Vietnamese vibe to it all right so I'm going to start with some of this giant crocodile steak we're going to slice a little bit off it it is really pretty tender which is kind of surprising the odd thing here is I mean it kind of looks initially like fish and chips it has that white flaky appearance with the batter on the outside I'm
expecting something fishy from the visuals maybe it's like that in the taste as well H so that's really good it's sort of like thick meaty flavor obviously than fish again it has a reptile taste I know that that's not the best reference for people at home what you primarily get in this dish is the batter I mean you really get that lemon flavor coming through it's really good imagine meat texture fish like appearance the oddest fish and chips you've ever had really quite good though okay let's go just for this I think this is kind
of like the crocodile rib cage really a rather small crocodile at this stage has some very fine bones again it has maybe chicken crossed with fish like appearance you see these bones that are far too large to be a fish but you get the similar kind of texture at least from the appearance let's try this straight up right now not uh dunking it in anything that's just really good it reminds me if anything of turtle it has just a firm white flaky texture much firmer than fish but in no way is it you know a
bad kind of Firma just has a little bit more chew to it you'd be hardpressed to pass this up if somebody served it to you at dinner you didn't know what it was you'd be asking for plates of this stuff really quite Sensational crocodile meat is pretty exceptional but the bulk of the value lies in the leather the issue though is that although much of the manufacturing of the Skins is done here in Vietnam the manufacturing of the final goods is often done overseas this meant that only a small portion of the profits from a
final product is captured by Vietnam and the farmers themselves that's now changing Mr hung has had other ideas he's stepping up his game and has set up an artisan workshop on site and it's not just him having access to this rare resource has sparked entrepreneurs all over Vietnam to getting into the industry young Artisans studying online learning the craft and producing high-end Goods on par with many of the major luxury Brands but at a fraction of the cost Tang founder of Tang leather is one such young man with a small Workshop tucked away in the
Alleyways of Saigon and so I meet up with him to see how leather is transformed into some of these high-end Goods we're going to check out the process of building out a wallet from scratch to finish things start out with a soft baby croc skin which is cut to size with a template it's worth noting that only one wallet can emerge from an entire skin a fact contributing to the premium cost of large crocodile leather items highquality Skins are both subtly soft and uniformly thin so we measure up to make sure everything is even before
moving on step one complete we've cut out the larger outside piece of crocodile leather that's going to be the main face of the wallet now move on to the [Music] inside the interior of this wallet is being made from Orange C skin and not Croc these pockets are cut to shape and glued to a synthetic backing material that cards will not stick to update on the process we've now finished gluing together the insides it's sitting sort of drying to the side with some little weights on it and we're waiting for some kind of heat glue
machine to warm up all these edges are then burnished with a heat knife to smooth and polish the rough edges of the leather this gives them a professional finished look [Music] and the outer pocket is stamped with Tang's logo at the same time the exterior is also in progress the outer piece of crocodile leather is being sanded at the center fold to allow for a smooth f holding crease free final product so we now have two of our three layers complete just the inside to be glued in the exterior piece of leather will be a
sandwich with crck belly on the outside calve skin on the inner side and a synthetic layer in the middle to achieve this everything is first glued up carefully placed together and the edges are finished with the hot crease knife finally everything is repeatedly rolled flat to ensure no air pocket remain so we now have a sandwich black on the outside orange on the inside and some very fine soft leather in the middle stitching now begins first holes are preh hammered into the outer edges of the exterior piece from here everything is hand stitched together with
care being taken to ensure complete [Music] uniformity I'm taking a break en ice coffee but with salt it's pretty good and cream that probably helps as well the edge and once again the sides are burnished to ensure all three layers have one perfectly smooth and flat finished face moving back to the interior and each of the card pockets is now complete and ready to assemble glue is carefully placed along outer edges and each of the Interior side pockets is fixed in place and hammered flat and finally a little stitching and many many layers of sanding
and Edge finishing okay so things are moving along at a decent clip we have the inside sorted all of the individual card holders have started to be glued together comprised and even the edging the stitching that holds the the three layer sandwich together is being done it's coming together a little bit faster than I thought [Music] [Music] how would you compare your quality to the big Brands out there are you able to produce the same quality of all of as you know like the Louis Vuitton the heres or not quite yet do you mainly sell
within Vietnam or internationally tell me about the leather industry in Vietnam how can they improve [Music] I look forward to seeing this fall I know exotic Leathers often get a bad wrap but for Vietnam a country with limited grasslands high-end Niche Meats like crocodile could be part of the solution what's the most rewarding part of this job this business for you crocodiles being indigenous require significant L less land than cattle and are obviously ideally suited to the local aquatic environments by reducing the prices and increasing the quality Farmers have all but eradicated crocodile poaching and
are now actively replenishing the wild [Music] populations on the leather side of things bringing the entire production process in country from breeding through to the final product Vietnam is finally beginning to develop a truly profitable and sustainable industry it maximizes the use of every part of the animal contributing to a truly sustainable and economically valuable agricultural model well guys that is it for this episode hopefully you enjoyed this kind of Deep dive into crocodile farming here in Vietnam and all its various use cases that's it for this series as well we are done with making
millions in the make hopefully you enjoyed it thank you for watching I will see you in the next video goodbye
