Leading Vietnamese pangasius exporter Vinh Hoan scored two big wins in September.
First, the Cao Lanh City, Vietnam-based firm’s Lucky Bag dumplings won the Best New Product award at the 2024 Seafood Excellence Asia competition, presented at Seafood Expo Asia on 4 September.
Then, a U.S. Department of Commerce investigation decided Vinh Hoan will not be subject to antidumping duties for frozen pangasius fillets.
The wins were celebrated by the company as evidence its commitment to new business segments and honest business practices are paying off, according to Vinh Hoan Sales Director Hoa Truong.
“The Lucky Bag product is made from pangasius surimi, which is another new business for us,” Truong told SeafoodSource at Seafood Expo Asia. “They are part of our strategy to fully optimize the company's pangasius value chain and to utilize our wider footprint as we move from changing our vision from being a seafood company to a food company.”
Even though 2023 was a difficult year for the company, as inflation weakened demand for pangasius in the U.S. – Vinh Hoan’s biggest market – and worldwide, the company’s widening of its vision beyond whitefish has turned out to be a wise move, Truong said.
“We started not with pangasius but with looking around in our home province and seeing what grows locally, and that was seafood,” Truong said. “As we have grown bigger, we have taken on other local products, and now we want to be creative and find new markets and new combinations of these products to get more people interested in them.”
In 2015, it invested in a collagen production plant that brought USD 31 million (EUR 27.8 million) in revenue for the company in 2023.
In 2020, Vinh Hoan formed a subsidiary in Singapore, Vinh Technology, to support its import and export operations and to explore opportunities for food sector trading.
In 2021, Vinh Hoan formed Thanh Ngoc Agriculture Food Co. (TNG Foods) in An Nhon, Vietnam, which produces freeze-dried and frozen tropical fruits and vegetables. The same year, it purchased Sa Giang Import and Export Corp., which produces ready-to-eat foods such as shrimp crackers and instant noodles.
And, earlier in 2024, it completed the installation of a surimi raw material production line it installed at its processing facility in Cao Lanh City, Vietnam, in 2023. The line gives Vinh Hoan an annual capacity of producing 5,000 metric tons of pangasius surimi, which is used in the wrappers for its Lucky Bag dumplings and in many of its other new innovations, such as a line of pangasius protein noodles, including its new Protein Pho Fusion product.
“The main market includes Asian countries and the Asian community in the U.S. and Europe,” Vinh Hoan said in a press release. “With noodle products that come with steamed pangasius meat and white-leg shrimp, Vinh Hoan hopes to capture the needs of health-conscious consumers.”
Vinh Hoan is also branching into seafood-adjacent territory with a strategic investment in Avant Meats in 2021 and its own development of plant-based seafood including eel with kabayaki sauce and an imitation scallop. It also signed a partnership agreement with Singapore-based insect protein producer Entobel in February 2024 to diversify inputs for its new aquaculture feed manufacturing division, FeedOne, launched in 2023.
“The company is expanding. It's going into a lot of new areas. It’s really all about having new businesses and finding new ways to combine our existing ones, like using the scraps from our fruit factory and our pangasius processing,” Truong said. “Our R&D team is given this mission to utilize everything possible and bring all these great Vietnamese products to a global stage.”
Despite the off year in 2023, which saw its revenue fall to VND 10 trillion (USD 406 million, EUR 364 million) from VND 13.2 trillion (USD 536 million, EUR 480 million) in 2022, and its EBITDA tumble to VND 1.3 trillion (USD 53 million, EUR 47 million) from VND 2.4 trillion (USD 97 million, EUR 87 million), and its profit after tax decline to VND 919 billion (USD 37 million, EUR 33 million) from VND 2 trillion (USD 81 million, EUR 73 million) in 2022, Vinh Hoan continued to invest in its operations.
It spent VND 47 billion (USD 1.9 million, EUR 1.7 million) on building its FeedOne plant, VND 78 billion (USD 3.2 million, EUR 2.8 million) on its fruit processing plant, VND 12 billion (USD 487,000, EUR 437,000) on a new hatchery, and VND 540 billion (USD 21.9 million, EUR 19.7 million) combined on renovating its collagen factory, fish-processing plants, and performing updates and maintenance on its fish farms.
Additionally, while it is rapidly expanding and diversifying, Vinh Hoan remains committed to maintaining its position as Vietnam’s top pangasius exporter.
In 2023, the company accounted for 13 percent of Vietnam’s total pangasius exports, including a 46 percent share of the U.S. market, 22 percent share of the E.U. market, 29 percent share of the Canadian market, and a 32 percent share of the Australian market. Even though Vietnam’s pangasius exports were down 25 percent in 2023, they were still worth USD 1.8 billion (EUR 1.6 billion). Vinh Hoan hopes to continue to build upon its lead in the value-added segment, which was worth USD 9 million (EUR 8.1 million) to the company in 2023, with exports reaching 16 countries, led by China and the Netherlands.
In its 2023 results, Vinh Hoan said it will continue to invest in mechanizing its farming operations and in its genetic selection program for broodstock fish at its hatchery center, a program now in its second year. Vinh Hoan is also working to improve the raw material costs for its processing plants while minimizing feed costs, and to improve production by “enhancing consistency and stability in product quality across the entire corporation.”
In presenting the company’s 2023 results, Vinh Hoan Chair Truong Thi Le Khanh said she had an expectation of breakthrough growth in 2024 and subsequent years.
“Vinh Hoan has successfully built a sustainable, integrated pangasius supply chain while expanding our product portfolio to include vegetables, shrimp crackers, and rice products. This has transformed us from a solely seafood-focused company into a diversified packaged foods group, well-positioned for future growth,” she said. “Vinh Hoan will continue our value-chain optimization strategy, leveraging technology and ongoing research and development to introduce new, value-added products. “
Those include fish balls with fillings, imitation crab sticks, and shrimp, salmon, and other whitefish products, as well as more surimi items.
At the 2024 Seafood Expo Global in April, Vinh Hoan CEO Ngo Vi Tam Nguyen told SeafoodSource she was beginning to see positive signals in the global consumer market, especially in the United States.
As a result, Vinh Hoan is expecting growth in both volume and value in 2024. It has set a revenue target of between VND 10.7 trillion and VND 11.5 trillion (USD 435 million and USD 467 million, EUR 389 million and EUR 419 million) for 2024, with expected net profit of between VND 800 billion and VND 1 trillion (USD 32.5 million and USD 40.6 million, EUR 29.1 million and EUR 36.4 million).
Long term, Truong said the company shares a mission of achieving USD 1 billion (EUR ) in annual sales.
“Vietnam has big advantages right now. Our economy is strong, and our political situation is stable. We have enough good labor and a promising young generation to further develop the country and the company,” Truong said. “The next 10 years will be a good time for us, and if everything works out as we hope and expect, we can reach our goal.”
