its skin on its belly to grow eggs and With the fast depletion of world stocks, sperm before maturation. The fish head aquaculture has presented itself as best The remarkable fish upstream during the flood season to method of preserving our oceans. from the Mekong spawn in Cambodia. The migration But the irony is that most farmed fish dates vary according to the river are carnivorous and need a high level system. of protein in their diet. Such proteins In 2000, fresh from receiving my tend to be sourced from industrial masters degree in Agronomy from fishing. CIRAD (French Agricultural Research The purchased today is actually farm-raised and Vietnam has been Centre for International Development), However, pangasius with their I travelled to Vietnam to learn more extremely successful with the aquaculture of two pangasius species. omnivorous diet only need a small about the country’s aquaculture, in amount of protein. They are most Farmers started with Pangasius particular pangasius farming. At that commonly raised with a specially bocourti, called ‘’ in Vietnamese, time, the culture and sale of pangasius formulated feed, mainly derived from and then followed with the more fillets was just starting to be recognised plant matter like rice husk, wheat, aquaculture-efficient Pangasius as a major industry. sunflower, soyabean, cassava, coconut hypopthalmus, called ‘tra’. The latter meal etc and an 8% by-product of OFCO YOUR OPEN WINDOW now represents more than 95% of Seven years on, and pangasius’s fame non-pangasius seafood. TO THE ORIENTAL SEAFOOD WORLD pangasius exports. has spread across all continents, but After 7 years of exporting pangasius, what do we really know about this Pangasius meat is white with firm working closely with farmers and fish? Or more to the point, what don’t However, globally tra has been given texture and has a relatively light smell processors, OFCO knows the market inside out, particularly its problems. we know? The answer to the latter is a many names, as well as pangasius these and taste. Fillets are boneless, easy to include sutchi catfish, white river Price fluctuations are important but lot of things. cook and suitable for all forms of most of the time they are predictable. cobbler, swai, Pacific dory, cream dory, cooking. Many restaurants, including To start with, while we all know striped catfish and pangas, to name but white table cloth establishments and We were set up as an intermediary pangasius is the commercial name for a few. catering business, have switched to this between pangasius suppliers and buyers. the species, less people know that it is white fish and have developed several Our role is to protect the interests of both parties, which is essential for the also the name. It belongs to the Tra can be harvested and processed as innovative preparations. long-term development of the industry. family of shark catfish called quickly as 6-8 months after the Pangasiidae, with more than 20 fingerlings were first brought to a farm. Our expert knowledge of the market has different species native in the Mekong seen us build a reputation for finding River. Among these is the Mekong This fish is already being distributed Jean-Charles Diener the right factory for the right customer. giant catfish, also known as P. gigas, into 70 worldwide markets and is Director And our expertise has seen us help which is listed in the Guinness Book of already being hailed as one of the most OFCO Sourcing Ltd. factories to optimise their capacities, World Records as the planet’s largest and to make them both more successful whitefish species of all time competitive and attractive to customers. freshwater fish and can measure up to probably comparable to the seawater 3 metres in length and weigh up to catches of Cod and Alaska Pollack. In We believe that the success of our 300kg. Pangasius and seafood 2006, Vietnam produced 800,000 from Vietnam? partners is our company’s success. tonnes of pangasius and this figure is www.ofco.info Like salmon, pangasius is a migratory estimated to reach 1 million tonnes in OFCO Of course! fish and carries some fat storage under this year. [email protected]