Vietnam exported about US$10 billion of seafood in 2024 across more than 170 markets, according to VASEP. That spread is the problem for a buyer: a factory approved for one market is not automatically approved for another, and the word "certified" on a brochure tells you almost nothing. The first question I ask about any new plant is which lists it sits on, and the answer takes about twenty minutes to check.
Approval is per market, not per factory
Every destination runs its own gate. The EU keeps a list of third-country establishments approved to export fishery products, and Vietnamese plants appear on it with a code that starts with "DL". China requires each overseas plant to be registered with its General Administration of Customs (GACC) before a container can be cleared, and the registered-enterprise list is searchable on the GACC site. South Korea registers overseas facilities through its food safety authority. For US pangasius and other catfish, the plant has to be eligible under USDA FSIS inspection, which is a separate track from FDA registration. Japan has no equivalent plant list for most seafood, so Japanese buyers lean on HACCP evidence and their own audits instead.
A plant can be on the EU list and absent from the GACC list. I have seen both situations, and in each case the factory's sales team described the plant as "export approved" without saying for where.
What to check before you ask for a price
I work through four things in this order.
The national registration. Vietnam's fisheries quality authority (NAFIQAD, under the agriculture ministry, which was reorganised in 2025, so check the current department name on the official site) issues the establishment code and inspects the plant. Ask for the code and the date of the last inspection. A plant that cannot give you its code in one email is not ready for export.
The destination list. Take the code and look it up on the importing market's own list. Do not accept a PDF from the factory as proof. The EU list and the GACC registry are public. The check costs nothing and shows whether the plant is listed and for which product categories, because listings are often limited to specific products such as fresh, frozen or processed fishery products.
The scope of the listing. A plant approved for frozen fillets may not be approved for cooked or value-added items, or for a species outside its registered range. If you plan to buy a new product form from a plant you already use, check the scope again.
The audit and certification trail. HACCP records, a recent third-party audit (BRC, IFS, FSSC 22000 or a retailer's own audit), and any ASC, BAP or MSC chain-of-custody certificate that your buyer requires. Ask for the certificate number and verify it with the issuing body. In my ten years running an EU-standard line, the certificates were rarely the weak point. Expired or out-of-scope certificates were, and a quick look at the scope statement catches both.
Traders and processing-on-behalf
Many Vietnamese exporters are trading companies that subcontract production. The name on the invoice may not be the name of the plant that packed your carton. Ask for the packing plant's code and make sure it matches the code printed on the carton and on the health certificate. If the exporter says production is shared across several plants, require the list of plants in writing, and require that each one is approved for your market. This is the most common gap I find, and it is also the one that causes rejected consignments at the border.
What to do with this
Add three lines to your supplier onboarding form: establishment code, the lists the plant is on for your market, and the packing plant if different from the exporter. Verify the first two yourself on the official registers before you negotiate price. If a factory resists those questions, that tells you more about the risk than the price quote does. I am a buyer-side consultant and I run these checks for buyers I work with before any sample request goes out; my commission is agreed upfront with each buyer.
Sourcing Vietnam seafood from Vietnam?
I work with international buyers on sourcing, supplier evaluation, and factory inspection. If you're evaluating Vietnamese suppliers for this category, I can help you avoid the common pitfalls.
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