Aquaculture, warehouse investments help seafood firm Go Dang outperform its peers

Seafood businesses are continuing to face numerous challenges in Vietnam, but Go Dang JSC (Godaco) is now fully booked for export orders until June 30. Notably, this company has invested heavily in both aquaculture areas and larger warehouses.

This industry as a whole experienced tough times in 2023, and most parts of the supply chain, from farmers to enterprises, experienced losses as a result of the global economic recession. Most businesses reduced personnel and input costs, and there was essentially no expansion investment.

However, since the end of 2023, Go Dang JSC has spent more than VND500 billion ($20.3 million) to construct a canned food processing factory and cold storage facility at An Hiep Industrial Park in Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province, with construction and equipment capital of VND300 billion ($12.16 million) and working capital of VND200 billion ($8.11 million) to expand production scale.

This facility alone is designed to produce and export 15,000 tons per year. Its export turnover is anticipated to be around $50 million per year, creating 500 jobs. The cold storage facility has a capacity of 6,000 tons of seafood, and the project is scheduled to be finished and put into use by the end of 2024.

Nguyen Van Dao, general director of Go Dang, stated that in the face of challenging global markets, the company is continuing to diversify markets and products and reduce costs.

Despite numerous challenges, particularly in terms of input material supplies, Go Dang began aggressively with a pangasius farming area of approximately 300 hectares, thanks to the development of a closed process system.

Simultaneously, the firm operates a seed farm spanning 20 hectares and produces 100 million fingerlings per year. The by-product factory generates 500 tons of fishmeal and 500 tons of fish oil each day. The cold storage facility has a total capacity of 15,000 tons, meeting export standards, saving the need to acquire fish from elsewhere at expensive prices.

Go Dang is also constantly working with localities to establish new growing regions, thereby increasing the autonomy of raw material sources for production and export.

The firm currently has seven plants functioning in the fields of frozen, value added, fish oil, and processing, with three in Tien Giang, one in Vinh Long, and three in Ben Tre.

The firm has created 50 different products derived from pangasius and clams, which have been exported to about 80 countries and territories throughout the world, creating secure jobs for approximately 5,000 regular workers in the Mekong Delta region.

Dao concluded that because the U.S. and European markets are plagued by inflation, clients' purchasing power is likewise limited. However, in the last months of last year, the market exhibited encouraging signs, and market dynamics in several nations, particularly the Chinese market, progressively stabilized. This is also one of the views held by other export firms in the industry as they plan their production and operations for 2024.

"Despite the difficulties, the company continues to believe that the advantages are fundamental, as evidenced by signals from the final months of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 through the gradually warming market. As a result, the company has signed contracts for the first six months of the year due to rising demand," Dao said.

A Godaco spokesperson indicated that the company's revenue objective for 2024 is approximately VND3,000 billion ($121.7 million). Export turnover is approximately $100 million, with production capacity expected to expand by approximately 30% once the VND500 billion ($20.28 million) investment project in Ben Tre province is operational. To meet these objectives, the company will continue to cut expenses and diversify its product offerings to develop new opportunities.

Go Dang Seafood Processing JSC, formerly Go Dang Trading Company Limited, was founded in 1998. On May 11, 2007, the corporation was officially established under the JSC format, under the name Go Dang JSC.