There was much talk at Vietfish – held in Ho Chi Minh City in August – of growth in the pangasius sector. From speaking with sources at the event, at least four of the industry's larger firms are investing in growth, be that farming, processing, or both. But should the sector be looking more at improving than simply upping output?
The country's largest pangasius firm, Vinh Hoan Corporation, seems to be careful in managing its markets – it remains a key seller to the US (which in 2018 has become the largest importer of Vietnamese pangasius again, taking the spot back from China), while also seeing improvements in its sales of premium pangasius to the EU. However, other companies seem to be riding the wave of demand from China, and investing to cash in.
“Over the past few years nobody was investing because prices weren't so good,” one executive with a farmer and processor told Undercurrent News.
“Now prices are up, Chinese prices too are good, compared with the prices over the past three or four years. This is the time to be adding the right kind of capacity, the right kind of farming.”
Money is also going into “rogue” farming, he said by way of explanation. “We need to see capacity increased, but improved too.”
He also suggested the country's net productive capacity wasn't necessarily increasing, pointing in part to a drop-off in activity from Hung Vuong Corporation, which seems to be in continuing financial difficulty (though still operating as normal, sources said early this year).
Vinh Hoan announced plans recently to invest a total of VND 375 billion ($16 million) in both processing and farming expansion, largely centered around the Thanh Binh Dong Thap Fisheries site it bought in 2017.
"Already, in 2017, we applied for a big new farm in Long An," Vinh Hoan CEO Vi Tam added while speaking to Undercurrent during an interview at seafood expo Vietfish.
"We hope to stock it with fingerlings in September." The 220-hectare farm includes a hatchery zone which will provide sufficient fingerlings for grow-out fish farms; a crucial step in the process, as this year has shown (more later).
This, together with innovations to the farming process, and new technology, should increase the firm's "self-supply ratio" by another 40%, Vinh Hoan said. It aims to increase this ratio to 70% by the end of 2019, but this level would likely be the limit of its ambition there, said Tam.
The plan is to increase the capacity of the Thanh Binh plant to 150 metric tons of raw material per day.
Also at Vietfish Undercurrent heard Mekong Delta-based Fatifishco is planning to more than double its processing capacity with the construction of a new factory. Its existing plant has a capacity of 150 metric tons of raw material per day, having been recently upgraded from 100t/day.
However, a new plant — expected to be completed by the end of 2018 — will be designed to handle around 200t/day. This investment has been prompted by strong customer demand, especially from China, the firm said.
“Demand from China has been so high this year that supplying other markets has been hard at times,” a representative with the firm said. “Selling to China is easier, but the demand is so strong.”
Farmer, processor and exporter Hung Ca is also currently constructing a new processing plant, which will be its fourth. Its new factory, which should be operating by the end of 2018, will take its capacity from 200 40-foot containers each month, to 250, a sales executive told Undercurrent.
The firm is also planning to invest in growing its farming output in 2019. It currently has 500 ponds, and is the largest in the Dong Thap region, the firm claimed.
It, too, cited China as a key reason for looking to grow now.
Too focused on China?
One source, again speaking at Vietfish, told Undercurrent he worried the Vietnamese pangasius sector was becoming too focused on China.
He said his firm had approached some processors to do some “toll processing” for the EU market. “It's very difficult to convince them; most say they are very busy with clients from China.”
He also cited the example of Godaco Seafood, as reported in Undercurrent. Godaco had been gearing up to target the US with value-added products from its newly-upgraded facilities, before director general Nguyen Van Dao announced it would shift its focus more to the EU and China.
This may largely have been down to a highly unfavorable trade picture with the US, rather than the draw of China. However, Godaco too has expanded its processing capacity – by about 30%, early in 2018.
There have been reports in the Vietnamese media warning of an over-reliance on the Chinese market this year, while the Vietnamese Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers has warned its members to ensure the fish they export to China is of top quality and meets all food safety standards.
This source agreed, telling Undercurrent “a growing dependence on the Chinese market is risky; if China gets picky about something, or decides it wants to pay less, then they just stop buying and prices will dive”.
Quality over quantity
Several sources spoke of the importance of the “right kind” of investment – that is to say, improving practices rather than just increasing the capacity to churn out substandard product.
Vinh Hoan's Tam pointed to three key areas her firm had funds set aside for investment in: broodstock, water quality, and feed.
It has VND 10bn (almost $430,000) reserved for such R&D in 2018, including work in "seeking and implementing innovations in nursery and grow-out phase".
Undercurrent's first source, the packer, recently warned pangasius ex-farm prices are set to rise, as an expected improvement in fingerling availability for grow out hasn't actually come to pass.
“We [the Vietnamese industry] have horrendous mortalities,” continued the source. “All the fish that go in at 20g, 40% are dead before harvest. So at 0-20g stages, that's the problem. We could sell more if we had more,” he said.
While at Vietfish, Undercurrent learned R&D and consultancy firm Fresh Studio is working with Danish recirculating aquaculture system supplier Alpha Aqua to help bring the technology to Vietnam’s fish and shrimp farming sector, for just this reason.
“They saw survival rates in RAS hatcheries of some 98% and FCR [feed conversion ratio] of 0.2-0.3,” said fisheries and aquaculture manager Alban Caratis.
“We had some theories about how RAS could help hatcheries, and they seemed to be about right. It is now just about proving the model and upscaling to some strategic part of the production cycle.”
He, and others, were full of praise for Vinh Hoan's signing of a long-term “strategic partnership” with Pharmaq at the expo. Together the pair's key goal is to reduce, and hopefully eliminate, the use of chemicals and antibiotics in pangasius farming, through the use of commercial-scale vaccinations, said Vinh Hoan chairwoman Truong Thi Le Khanh.
However, while this is an ideal goal, the packer source mentioned above noted this was a great move in terms of improving fingerling health too; “any extra fish we can get to the market is a big deal,” he said.
Source: Undercurrent News
