Quynh Luu fishermen prepare seafood for Lunar New Year
(Baonghean.vn) - In order to meet the market demand for Lunar New Year, taking advantage of the returning ships, fishermen in the Quynh Luu coastal area are rushing to process fish and squid, preparing many cold storages to store goods, ensuring quality when reaching consumers.
Ms. Tran Thi Hoan's family is a long-time seafood processing and trading household in Son Hai commune, Quynh Luu district. Realizing that the demand for seafood products will increase at the end of the year, about 2 months before Tet, Ms. Hoan invested more than 1 billion VND to purchase seafood such as dried squid, mackerel, fresh shrimp, fresh squid, pre-process, classify and package them for storage in a cold storage.
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Demand for seafood increases at the end of the year. Photo: Nhu Thuy |
On average, her family buys and sells about 2 tons of seafood of all kinds every month, but during Tet, the demand increases 3 to 4 times. Therefore, to ensure the quality of fresh seafood, her family has invested in 2 cold storages to preserve the goods longer and maintain their freshness.
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| Businesses in Quynh Luu district classify and package dried squid for storage to serve the Tet market. To keep seafood fresh, people often wrap the fish tightly in newspapers or paper, put it in styrofoam boxes, and then put it in the freezer. Photo: Hong Dien |
Mr. Nguyen Van Tham - a fish sauce producer in Son Hai commune said: In order to meet orders in a timely manner, about 30 days before Tet, when fish sauce of various types such as spotted fish and anchovy fish has been fermented for nearly 2 years, producers will filter and store them in large barrels.
To have the highest standard products, people strictly follow the production process. From the stage of selecting fresh fish without ice, sea salt, spices to make the bait, everything must be standard and even the time of drying and stirring the fish sauce under the sun, helping the fish to cook evenly and develop its aroma. Thanks to that, fish sauce in Quynh Luu district has a unique, delicious flavor, beautiful color, safety, and is favored by the market.
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| The district has 5 localities with traditional fish sauce processing villages, with more than 2,000 households working in the profession. Photo: Nhu Thuy |
Currently, not only seafood processing facilities but also fish sauce processing villages in Quynh Luu district are busy preparing for Tet. The whole district has 5 localities with traditional fish sauce processing villages, with more than 2,000 households working in the profession. On average, Quynh Luu district processes about 40 million liters of various types of fish sauce per year.
With a large capacity of more than 800 vessels, fishermen in Quynh Luu district have provided the market with a rich source of seafood each year, with an output of over 80,000 tons. However, this year, due to unfavorable weather and high gasoline and oil prices, fishermen have encountered many difficulties going to sea, with the total annual output estimated at 75,000 tons, worth about 3,000 billion VND.
To increase the value of seafood products, Quynh Luu district has focused on directing coastal communes to propagate and mobilize fishermen to actively invest in applying technology to process products such as dried fish, dried squid, dried shrimp to meet domestic and export markets. On average, the value of processed goods will increase by 20-30% compared to fresh goods.
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| On average, people in Quynh Luu district process about 40 million liters of fish sauce of all kinds every year. Photo: Hong Dien |
Ms. Vu Thi Bich Hang - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quynh Luu district said: In order to prepare a rich source of seafood for the Lunar New Year, coastal people have actively gone offshore, exploited many types of high-value seafood and all of them are well frozen at the time of fishing. Typical products in Quynh Luu district such as: dried squid, one-sun-dried squid, dried shrimp, grilled mackerel, yellowstripe scad, ground scad, scad, pomfret, anchovy... are all seafood with very high consumption during Tet, 3-5 times higher than normal days.
Currently, processed seafood products of fishermen in Quynh Luu district are assessed to be of delicious quality and consumed in all provinces in the country. However, to increase the value of seafood, Quynh Luu district is orienting fishermen to focus on the processing stage, product quality to ensure food hygiene and safety to move towards building OCOP standards. From there, it is possible to promote the brand as well as create a legal corridor for fishermen's specialty products to access the export market, increasing income for people...