VietNamNet Bridge – Too many difficulties have made fish sauce production workshops in Nha Trang City, the owners of Nha Trang fish sauce brand, exhausted.

Instead of making bottled fish sauce finished products which bear Nha Trang fish sauce brand, the producers have shifted to make fish sauce materials to provide to other producers who then re-process and sell the products under other trademarks. A lot of farmers have sold fishing boats and buckets, the instruments for making fish sauce, to shift to other kinds of business. As such, Nha Trang fish sauce is sinking into oblivion.

Producers now do the outsourcing for others

Tran Van Truc, the owner of the Ngoc Ha fish sauce workshop on Vo Thi Sau Street in Vinh Truong ward, is well known in Nha Trang City. Truc’s fish sauce products were once present in Hanoi, Central Highlands and HCM City under the name “Ngoc Ha fish sauce.”

However, Truc now cannot compete with the fish sauce products of the big enterprises in Binh Duong province and HCM City. Therefore, he had decided to shift to make fish sauce materials (raw fish sauce) to provide to the enterprises.

Truc said that he would rather make raw fish sauce, even though the sale prices of raw fish sauce are lower than the prices of finished products. “We only have to make fish sauce and then provide to enterprises under the supply contracts, while we do not have to spend time to look for consumption markets,” he said.

“In the past, we once made bottled fish sauce products with Nha Trang brand. However, nowadays, in order to organize production in large scale, we need huge capital, up to tens of billion dong, which is beyond our capability,” Truc said, adding that making raw fish sauce is more simple than finished products.

Nguyen Thanh, also a fish sauce workshop owner, also said that he can take back the investment capital quickly when he makes raw fish sauce, while he does not have to satisfy too strict requirements.

Other fish sauce makers also think that way. This explains why the number of workshops that make finished products has been narrowed, while the number of workshops that make raw fish sauce has been increasing.

According to the Nha Tran Fish Sauce Association, there are some 100 fish sauce workshops. Fish sauce is made in Nha Trang and then carried to other places, when the products are made up and then sold under noisy advertisement campaigns through large distribution networks. Of course, the products are not sold under the name of Nha Trang.

The noteworthy thing is that even at the groceries of the Vinh Truong fish sauce village, traditional Nha Trang fish sauce products have been replaced with the products which bear other brands.

Fish sauce markers complained that they have experienced a very difficult period, as Khanh Hoa province had a lean harvest of anchovy. In order to collect materials, fish sauce makers had to go to Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan provinces to seek supply sources, which made the input costs increase.

Nguyen Thi Sinh, one of the few people, who still make traditional fish sauce in Nha Trang City, complained that households now cannot compete with enterprises which make products in large industrial scale. “They have money to carry out noisy advertisement campaigns, while we only have fish and salt,” she said.

Famous fish sauce brand dies

The Nha Trang fish sauce brand has existed for the last many years and Vietnamese people would feel regret if the famous brand dies. Local authorities understand that it is necessary to take actions to protect the famous brand. However, no perfect solution has been found to do that.

Five years ago, the National Office for Intellectual Property (NOIP) granted the certificate on trademark registration to Nha Trang fish sauce. The Nha Trang Fish Sauce Association which once had 30 members at the establishment, aiming to protect and develop Nha Trang fish sauce, now only have 10 members left. Most of them are now doing the outsourcing for enterprises from other provinces instead of focusing on developing Nha Trang fish sauce brand.

Source: SGTT