HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Catfish is one of Vietnam’smajor seafood exports with a turnover of 1.8 billion USD, and its skin, a wasteproduct, is also being exported starting recently.

Research is increasingly indicating that catfishskin has many nutritious substances that are good for health like collagen andgelatin.

While processing, a plant produces five to eighttonnes of catfish skin daily. In the domestic market, it is sold at 10,000 VND(0.45 cent) per kilogramme for making animal feed, but since 2017, Co MayEnterprise in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap has started exporting itto Singapore for 22,000 – 24,000 VND (around 1 USD) per kilogramme.

In Singapore it is made into a snack and sold at136,000 VND (6 USD) for a small pack of 230g.

The company exports 50 -60 tonnes a month andplans to expand both the production of catfish and export of skin.

It will also carry out research on demand invarious markets like the EU, Singapore and Malaysia, and build a plant to makethe catfish skin snack.

Catfish processor Vinh Hoan has already built aplant for making 2,000 tonnes collagen a year from the skin.

“Each kilogramme of collagen fetches 25 USD onthe global market while catfish skin only fetches 1 USD,” a Vinh Hoanspokesperson said.

The company earned 1 million USD from catfishskin exports last year, and plans to increase this to 5 million USD this year.

With 2.6kg of catfish only yielding 1kg offillet, the rest of the fish is considered waste and processing plants have theresponsibility of disposing of 700,000 tonnes of it every year.

The spokesperson said: “If the waste is takenand processed, it can bring a huge income to enterprises. Otherwise, it wouldbecome a burden on the environment.”

The price of catfish fillet in the EU and the USis very low at around 2.6 USD per kilogramme, while the cost of processing hasdoubled, meaning profits are very low for exporters.

Many are trying to diversify their productsmainly targeting the domestic market. Besides the meat, the fat is processedfor oil and the fish’s stomach is a popular dish, while other parts are mostlysold for making animal feed. Some of the other parts can be used to manufacturecollagen and bio-fuel.

Processing company Go Dang has built a plant toprocess all catfish wastes and exports them to the Republic of Korea, Singaporeand China.

But while there are 100 catfish processingplants in the Mekong Delta alone, there are still only a small number of plantsprocessing wastes.

“Relevant authorities should [help] increaseexports of waste and deal with the environmental aspect,” the spokespersonadded.-VNA/VNS