Features

The Can Tho city-based Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company (Bianfishco) is emerging as one of the fastest growing seafood processors and exporters in Vietnam.

Pham Thi Dieu Hien

But, Bianfishco chairwoman and general director Pham Thi Dieu Hien told VIR’s Huu Phuc that the sustainable growth was the company’s key goal.

Can you brief us on Bianfishco?

Bianfishco, with its headquarters located at Can Tho city’s Tra Noc II Industrial Zone, was established in 2005 with initial chartered capital of VND500 billion ($26.3 million). Bianfishco specialises in farming, processing and exporting seafood, mainly basa and tra catfish. Total investment capital in Bianfishco by 2008 was around VND1,000 billion.

Despite being a newly established company, Bianfishco has quickly gained its leading position in Vietnam’s seafood export sector. Since participating in the exporting field, we have always been among the leading Vietnamese exporters of seafood products. The Bianfishco trademark is widely recognised in both domestic and foreign markets.

Bianfishco has grown up as a result of all company officers and employees who have constantly strived to do better. Recently, Bianfishco was rewarded with the “National Brand 2010” prize.

Bianfishco is the sole Vietnamese basa and tra catfish exporter which has enjoyed the United States’ Ministry of Commerce and the US legislative bureau’s zero per cent tax until 2012 when exporting to the US.

Our products have been exported to more than 80 countries and territories in the world, in which the company’s key markets are the US and the European Union. Basa and tra catfish only belong to the Mekong Delta region and nowhere in the world has favorable conditions to raise the fishes efficiently like here.

I think that my company’s seafood exporting segment will continue to grow strongly.

Can you explain further about Bianfishco’s business plan?

We have a goal of sustainable growth and stable development in the long run, in which quality and prestige are key factors for the company’s business activities.

We have built a seafood processing plant with capacity of 500 tonnes of basa and tra materials per day and 54,000 tonnes of finished fillet products a year. Especially, our plant is equipped with brand new and modern machinery by famous firms such as an Evanpco evaporative condenser, an IQF Freeze, Geneglace flake-ice machines, Guntner cooling water systems, Marelec skin removing and grading machines and PoliStamp cold stores and other specialised equipment from the US and Asia. This is the most modern and biggest seafood processor in the Mekong Delta.

We have hired foreign experts to train local workers to run the processing. Normally, each processed seafood product needs an additional two hours to be transported to storehouses, but thanks to modern equipment, our products only need 45 minutes. That helps us cut costs and time in protecting the seafood products. Therefore, we can ensure two year warranties for our products.

Along with investing in building modern processing plant, we have built a 100 hectare fish material breeding zone in Vinh Long and An Giang provinces. We apply international raising standards of Global Partnership for Good Agriculture Practice (Global GAP), satisfying all markets’ strict hygiene and safety requirements.

Raising fish is attached with supervision equipment to control their health and growth. Especially, we have expert teams of engineers devoted to fish raising. These teams, besides supporting fish raising workers, also conduct research and development activities to find which substance is forbidden or allowed in the husbandry sector then instruct to farmers, workers who contracted to raise fish for Bianfishco, to follow. With our own fish material breeding zone, we are active in raw materials for processing but also controlling the hygiene standards.

With the motto that “product quality must be ensured from raising zone to dinner table”, we have researched and processed several high qualify products like flour soaked and fluffing fried fish.

These products can replace pork, chicken and beef in daily meals, but their prices are competitive. With these advantages, we hope to gradually change the eating habits to balance meat and fish. That is also a recommendation from nutritious experts.

So Bianfishco products are highly sort after by buyers?

For us, high quality products are a must. Bianfishco always thinks of its prestige very seriously. After contracts are signed, we fulfill all the stated clauses with the same models, quantity and time. When doing business with Bianfishco, our partners have never complained about quality as well as services. That explains Bianfishco products have never been rejected when they are exported.

By Huu Phuc