20 Vietnamese pangasius exporters in Vietnam have jointly formed a fund to combat pangasius’s PR crisis in the EU.
Tra fish industry has found it increasingly difficulties to sell the fish to the EU since Spanish television channel Cuatro gave wrong information about fish farmed in the Mekong Delta, said Vĩnh Hoàn Corporation chairwoman Trương Thị Lệ Khanh during a conference in Vietnam. However, this industry can deal with the PR crisis through a more popular television channel which can tell the truth about fish farming in Vietnam, Khanh added.
The enterprises who participated at the conference, presided over by VASEP pledged to contribute $200,000 to the fund. However, only $87,000 has since been transferred by nine enterprises, said VASEP.
Khanh proposed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development (MARD) to support the fund-raising effort. According to VASEP, improving fish quality was key to dealing with the EU problem although media plays a major role.
During the Seafood Expo Global in Brussels, Belgium earlier this year, Vĩnh Hoàn CEO Nguyễn Ngô Vi Tâm said that her company was actively finding collaboration with other partners in the production and distribution of Vietnamese pangasius, to form a structured marketing organization, akin to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute or Norwegian Seafood Council. “One way we could arrange it could be to have the MARD development push R&D from broodstock quality up to processing — in the Premium Pangasius Fillets project,” she suggested.
“Premium Pangasius Fillets” is a product range Vĩnh Hoàn launched at a previous Brussels show, to illustrate the species can reach a peak quality. Tâm suggested the government could fund the promotion of this concept via marketing. “Or the other method we’re looking at is collaboration, an alliance, and raising funds for marketing and PR.”
VFM
