World’s largest fish feed maker opens second plant in Vietnam

Norwegian major Skretting, the world’s largest maker of feed for farmed fish, has inaugurated its second Vietnam factory with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons.

The $24 million state-of-the-art facility, located in Long An province bordering Ho Chi Minh City, enables Skretting’s effective feed supply to farming provinces in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and beyond, the giant said.

The southern delta region is Vietnam’s largest aquaculture hub and rice bowl. Rice and aqua products are among the main export earners of Vietnam’s export-driven economy.

“Skretting is not only making great contributions to the development of Vietnam’s sustainable aquaculture but also serves as strong evidence of the good cooperation between Norway and Vietnam in this area for the last 40 years,” commercial counselor Arne-Kjetil Lian from the Embassy of Norway in Hanoi told the plant opening ceremony last Friday in Long An.

The new factory, Lotus II, covers 20,800 square meters next to Skretting Vietnam’s existing facility in Thuan Dao Industrial Park, Long An's Can Duoc district. Skretting broke ground on this second plant in March 2021.

Vietnam became part of the Skretting family in 2010 through its full acquisition of Tomboy Aquafeed JSC, a Vietnamese fish and shrimp feed company.

Skretting, with its headquarters located in Norway’s Stavanger, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Nutreco feed group in the Netherlands. The corporation operates factories in 19 countries across the world, providing more than 2.6 million tons of feed annually, the company says.

In a related development, Europe’s leading frozen food company, Nomad Foods, inked new contracts late this October to secure supplies of certified farmed pangasius fish from three Vietnamese firms - Vinh Hoan, VDTG and Godaco Seafood.

The three firms are among the largest global suppliers of Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) - certified suppliers of farmed seafood. They will start supplying the pangasius fish from 2023 for UK-based Nomad Foods, the world’s largest branded purchaser of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fish and seafood products.