The new processing facility that Dutch company Lenger Seafoods began building in Vietnam four years ago is now cranking out product for export worldwide.
Lenger Sales Director Igor Kint said the company attended the 2017 Seafood Expo North America with the hope of finding more buyers in the United States.
“We are here because the States is a good market for this product,” he said. “We are bringing a good product into the market that has the Lenger standard.”
The global supplier of shellfish expanded into Vietnam with its processing facility in Nam Dinh Province, Vietnam, where it oversees on-farm monitoring, quality selection and refrigerated transport for hard-shell clams (Meretrix lyrata) farmed nearby.
“We have full traceability and monitoring in the fields – we make sure we get the right clams, and in order to do so, we have to know where they are coming from and how they are handled from the moment they come out of the water,” Kint said.
The new facility has top-notch quality control, including a complete lab and live “wet” storage, as well as a state-of-the-art purification system developed at its facilities in Europe that cleans the clams to a very high degree, Kint said. The company is targeting 7,000 to 8,000 metric tons of production for its first year of full operations, with the ability to grow up to 10,000 tons of production capacity and double that if it adds more production lines to the facility.
The company has already found markets for the clams globally, including in Europe, and has begun doing frozen production of the clams as well, he said, in addition to its live, fresh and cooked products.
“We know that ramp-up will take some time, but we hope it’s very fast. However, we have to start somewhere.” Kint said. “What we think will help us is our reputation due to our expertise from our European factories, which we have copied in Vietnam. That’s a guarantee of quality for our customers.”
