Domestic fish sauce makers regain market share

Domestic fish sauce makers regain market share

Vietnamese fish sauce manufacturers have regained the domestic market from multinationals by using their traditional recipes.

Vietnam, which consumes 200 million liters of fish sauce worth VND7.5 trillion a year, according to the General Statistics Office, is an attractive market for many investors, who want to reap the rewards of such a product.

According to a report from Nielsen Vietnam, a market survey firm, fish sauce products make up 20 percent of the total output of the Vietnamese food industry with a 20 percent annual growth rate.

Three years ago, the bottled products of Masan Good Corporation “overthrew” Knorr Phu Quoc, a brand of Unilever Vietnam, to jump to the No 1 position in the fish sauce market, with 70 percent of the market.

Since then, the products, made in production lines on an industrial scale, have become more popular thanks to the company’s large output, big advertising budgets and low selling prices.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese could not make fish sauce at such low production costs.

Bui Thi Sach, President of Thanh Phat Company, which owns the Nam Phan brand, said fish sauce makers have to follow many steps to make products, including one-year fish drying, and obey the HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points) procedures.

Therefore, Vietnamese products are always more expensive.

At that time, analysts remained pessimistic about the Vietnam’s traditional fish sauce industry.

A series of small fish sauce production units went bankrupt, while big production establishments could not sell products under their brands.

They had to provide their products to Knorr, Acecook or Masan which re-processed the products under their brand names.

Vietnamese housewives, who heard that the fish sauce made on industrial production lines would be the trend, shifted to use the “modern-style” fish sauce in their cooking.

According to Nguyen Quoc Hung, Deputy Director of Hanh Phuc Fish Sauce Company, there are two groups of fish sauce products in the market: industrial fish sauce, i.e the fish sauce made in factories with production lines, and traditional fish sauce, made manually.

Market changes

Of the two groups of products, the latter is now gaining the upper hand, according to Hung.

Vietnamese, who once favored industrially made fish sauce from well known brands, have changed their taste.

They have realized that the traditional products with three basic elements – protein, water and salt – should be the top choice in the modern green, clean consumption tendency.

Traditional fish sauce products are made of the best fish in Vietnamese territorial waters, not just a combination of substances.

The products with Hanh Phuc, Hong Hanh, Phu Quoc, Lien Thanh, Nam Phan and Barona brand names have been put on the shelves at supermarkets again and are selling well despite prices that are 25-40 percent higher than Masan’s or Knorr’s products.

“High protein level and no preservatives – these are the biggest advantages of Vietnam made fish sauce,” said Ngo Cam Van from Cam Van Private Enterprise.

vietnamnet