With anchovy shortage, Phan Thiet fish sauce village is at risk of "hanging up tents"

However, contrary to the usual hustle and bustle, many businesses and fish sauce factories here are restless because this year's anchovy output is low, prices are high, and there is a risk of not having enough raw materials to maintain a profession that has existed for more than 300 years.

At Ba Hai fish sauce facility, one of the long-standing traditional fish sauce brands in Phu Thuy ward ( Lam Dong province), the giant fermentation tanks are gradually running out. “Every year we need 300-400 tons of anchovies to make enough fermentation, but this year we have only collected about 60%. The fish supply is not enough, the purchase price is currently up to 15,000 VND/kg, 2,000-3,000 VND/kg higher than last year. If this continues, many tanks will be empty,” Mr. Nguyen Huu Dung, owner of Ba Hai fish sauce facility, worried.

According to Mr. Dung, the difficulty comes not only from the decrease in anchovy production, but also from the fact that many animal feed producers are also participating in buying anchovies, pushing up prices. Meanwhile, anchovies caught far from shore are not well preserved, and when they reach shore, they are spoiled and cannot be used to produce fish sauce.

Not only Ba Hai, many traditional fish sauce production facilities in Phan Thiet in Lam Dong province are also in a similar situation. Mr. Nguyen Van Tich, a small producer, said: “My facility needs 100 tons of anchovies every year for fermentation, but even though we have gone to many ports and contacted many traders, we still cannot buy enough. If this situation continues, we will probably have to “hang up our tents”. My whole family has lived on this profession for generations, now looking at the empty tanks and tents makes me feel very sorry.”

Not only are there difficulties in raw materials, but the output of traditional fish sauce is also not bright. Mr. Truong Quang Hien, Chairman of Phan Thiet Fish Sauce Association, informed that the market for traditional fish sauce is quite slow, small-scale establishments mainly sell raw fish sauce to industrial fish sauce production enterprises, with insignificant profits. Meanwhile, the cultural and traditional values of the 300-year-old fish sauce making profession have not been properly exploited.

A representative of the Phan Thiet Fish Sauce Association confirmed that the traditional fish sauce industry in Phan Thiet currently has over 120 production facilities, bringing over 20 million liters of fish sauce to the market each year, but mainly sells raw fish sauce to industrial fish sauce enterprises, while bottled fish sauce is currently quite modest. Faced with challenges in raw material sources and consumer markets, if there is no timely solution, the risk of many facilities having to close down and the traditional fish sauce production profession being lost is inevitable.

VICTORY

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/khan-hiem-ca-com-lang-nghe-nuoc-mam-phan-thiet-nguy-co-treo-leu-post812034.html