One of priorities of the Vietnamese fishery industry is to shorten the way to European retail chains for their seafood products. However, no company is able to bring seafood products to foreign supermarkets' shelves directly. The reason is that seafood products from Vietnam have to pass many steps in the distributing chain, especially labelling and marketing, which are dominated by big fish and seafood processing and distribution groups in importing markets.
Consumers can buy fish products like pangasius loins from Vietnam in some supermarkets in Europe. All of them are sold under the brand name of European processing and distribution groups. However, consumers can find the statement "from Vietnam" on these products. It is clear that products from Vietnam have to pass a range of expensive steps to be available in European supermarkets; therefore, profit of Vietnamese export companies are tightened even though they provide pangasius at high price.
Nguyen Huu Dung, Vice President of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) analyzed that European buyers are the most important partners of Vietnam; however, they are only interested in the selling price in stead of the quality of products.
"Previously, Vietnamese exporters had no choice once European importers had willingness to buy fish at a lower price. However, Vietnam pangasius industry is changing the supply method and turning to final distributors – i.e. big supermarkets and leading retailers in Europe, which account for large market shares in this region," Mr. Dung added.
Vietnamese seafood exporters are still weak in marketing. Most of them are not paying attention to habits of final consumers in Europe.
Which kinds of designed fish products do consumers want to buy? What are recipes for pangasius? These steps are taken by middle men in foreign markets, so profit for Vietnamese company is lower and lower.
"Personally, I think that marketing is more important than increasing output. Pangasius producers must identify who eat their fish and how consumers want fish products to be processed and designed. However, distributors in foreign markets are still needed to further promotion of products to gain high selling price. Currently, Vietnamese processors and exporters are much investing in the quality, but price for pangasius products is still low," Sabine Gisch-Boie with WWF Austria explained.
Different from the U.S., European countries have very low catfish production. There is no obstacle from European Fish Procesors Association against pangasius from Vietnam. Exports of pangasius to this region may gain more advantages.
Vietnamese exporters are now focusing on convincing European consumers with pangasius products with good quality, mild flavour and easy to prepare for home meals.
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