(pangasius-vietnam.com) Over the years, Dong Thap province-based seafood companies have furthered their focus on investments in farming areas to produce safe and disease-free raw fish in compliance with international standards.
So far, Dong Thap has totaled 244 hectares for aquaculture certified by GlobalGAP, ASC, SQF, BAP and VietGAP, representing more than 27 percent of the province's total land for aquaculture.
GlobalGAP is the most popular standard applied by Dong Thap-based seafood companies for their fish farming activities, including Vinh Hoan Corp, Hung Ca Co. Ltd, To Chau Joint Stock Company, Hoang Long Seafood, Dabaco, CLpangafish, Dotaseafood. These companies all have a closed farming and processing chain to ensure the high quality of products.
Vinh Hoan Corp is one of the leading companies applying international standards in production chain. The company received, for the first time, the AquaGap certificate in 2009; then it continued to reach the GlobalGAP and BAP certificates in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, Vinh Hoan Corp became the first Vietnamese seafood company in Vietnam having ASC certificate, performing the management system and infrastructure of its pangasius farms under the key criteria: environmental and social impacts, surrounding communities, food safety and traceability.
Vinh Hoan Corp also invested in a modern water treatment system in its processing plants, meeting domestic and international requirements on outflow water. The system has ISO 14001 certificate. Currently, Vinh Hoan Corp's pangasius production satisfies 50 – 70 percent of its demand of raw material for processing to export. The company is implementing strict control of raw material against standard for farmed fish species and testing for the detection of raw fish with anti-biotic substances.
Hungca Co,.Ltd runs a closed production chain from pond to table in compliance with international standards, especially the ASC one for fish farms and processing plants.
At present, Hungca Co., Ltd owns more than 700 hectares of fish production in 5 districts of Dong Thap; 80 hectares of which were certified by GlobalGAP. The company is producing pangasius fillets and value-added products with total fish output of 210,000 MT per year
Dong Thap province strives to increase by 50 percent superficies of fish farming meeting international standards. It also focuses on building the system of controlling the inflow water, waste water and sedimentation from grow-out ponds in order to ensure environment protection and product quality.