The young man exported snakehead fish noodle soup abroad.

Recently, snakehead fish noodle soup, also known as porridge in Quang Tri dialect, has suddenly become a popular dish among the Vietnamese community in the US. The product has not yet arrived but has been pre-ordered. Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan, the owner of this product, could not hide his pride but still modestly said that he has only "achieved" but not "successful".

Take advantage of social distancing to research products

Sitting in front of me is Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan, a young man who has just turned 30, but his face is seasoned with the weather, mixed with a bit of hardship. Thuan comes from Quang Tri province, studied business administration at university in Ho Chi Minh City and after graduating worked for a logistics company. "My salary at that time was quite good, the job was stable, my family was very secure. For a young man who had just graduated, this start could be said to be smooth and favorable," Thuan said. However, Thuan always cherished the ambition of doing useful things for his homeland. One of his aunts told him: "If you work in the export industry, remember to bring your hometown's specialties abroad for many people to know."

"Maybe those words are just random, but I'm very concerned. Quang Tri land has always been known by many people as a land of bombs and bullets, hard work and poverty. But for me, the typical dishes of my hometown are priceless gifts. In Ho Chi Minh City, there is Hanoi pho, Hue beef noodle soup, all the regional dishes, but why doesn't Quang Tri have anything? From that, my desire to bring Quang Tri culinary culture to everyone has been nurtured," Thuan said.

Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan and packaged snakehead fish noodle products

Thinking is doing, in 2015, he quit his job to open Ca Men restaurant, a small restaurant hidden in an alley with a few plastic tables and chairs in Tan Phu District. After a while, he moved the restaurant to a famous food street in Phu Nhuan District. The first dish that helped him create a brand was Phuong Lang wet rice cake, then expanded to snakehead fish porridge, duck porridge, chicken with Vietnamese coriander, and stir-fried eel vermicelli. Porridge is from Quang Tri province, while the more common name of this dish is banh canh.

Thuan bought all the ingredients and spices from Quang Tri and transported them by plane to serve customers on the same day. The fellow countrymen and communities that Thuan surveyed before opening the restaurant were the main customers in the early stages and supported him in word-of-mouth marketing. Thanks to the large number of customers, Thuan was able to develop a total of 3 restaurants until 2018.

Ca Men's specialty dish from Quang Tri is conquering domestic and foreign customers.

In 2021, when the social distancing policy to fight the Covid-19 epidemic was applied, Ca Men restaurant, like many other restaurants, had to close for a long time. While cooking free rice to supply the anti-epidemic forces in Ho Chi Minh City, Thuan heard many patients expressing their desire to eat snakehead fish noodle soup from their hometown. The idea of ​​"packaging" the noodle soup arose from there. Nhat Thuan and his team started researching. Snakehead fish and noodle soup ingredients continued to be imported from Quang Tri.

The fish meat was cut into pieces, the fish bones were crushed and used to make the sauce according to the recipe learned from the best restaurant in Quang Tri. Initially, Thuan packaged it in large packages for 5 people, but the bulky size made it difficult to preserve and transport. Not to mention, if not eaten all, continuing to preserve it would cause the dish to lose its nutrients. Thuan continued to research.

This time, the snakehead fish is no longer used because the meat is tough but the preservation time is short. Thuan uses semi-natural snakehead fish to use for a longer time and control the amount of impurities. The noodle package is also adjusted to be more compact. The rice used to cook the noodles is also organic rice suitable for the physical condition of many people. When the whole country reopens and there is no more quarantine, it is also the time for Thuan to launch the new product Ca Men snakehead fish noodle soup to the market.

Ca Men signed a contract with a distributor to export to the US.

The story of "carrying firewood to the forest"

Up to now, the packaged snakehead fish noodle product has only appeared for more than a year, but has dominated the domestic market. Ca Men has a system of dozens of agents supplying to provinces and cities across the country. Thuan said that in all localities, the fact that the "snakehead fish porridge" product has established a foothold in his hometown of Quang Tri is a proud achievement.

"In my hometown, when you step out of the alley, you will immediately see a snakehead fish porridge shop. It is so popular that everyone from old to young eats it. A bowl costs only about 20,000 VND. Ca Men's packaged products are twice as expensive, 50,000 VND/package. But I still sell it in Quang Tri, selling 3,000 - 5,000 packages per month. That proves the quality of the instant snakehead fish noodle soup package is not inferior to the bowl of noodle soup right at the shop," Mr. Thuan shared.

Recently, many experts have suggested and introduced to Thuan advanced drying technology from Japan and some other countries for reference and application. However, these technologies usually only retain 80 - 85% of the product quality when reconstituted. "I have researched, applied and confirmed that fresh banh canh with my patented technology can retain its original flavor and compete with traditional specialties right at home. Even the most fastidious people when using this product also admit that the quality is almost the same as the pot of banh canh just cooked", Thuan proudly revealed that the secret here is thanks to the ingredients being almost all imported directly from Quang Tri: snakehead fish, rice flour, chili powder, pepper, fish sauce, shrimp paste...

Not only creating jobs for the store and distribution system, Ca Men also helps stabilize output for many people in Quang Tri hometown who are processing and supplying raw materials. This number will increase many times when the project to open a factory in Quang Tri is implemented. Quang Tri province leaders also create favorable conditions to support, introduce new technology and are putting snakehead fish porridge on the list of 5-star OCOP product development.

I am planning to build a factory in my hometown Quang Tri. The provincial leaders are very happy and occasionally call to remind me. The project can be implemented next year. If it goes well, it will create more jobs for local people and also contribute to spreading the name of Quang Tri cuisine far and wide. Many people are willing to become shareholders, but I do not think it is necessary because I am still capable of doing it.

But to get to where he is today, Thuan has also gone through many difficult times. In 2018, he was the owner of 3 restaurants, but because he was still quite young and lacked management experience, even though all of his restaurants were crowded, Ca Men still fell into losses. At that time, Thuan and his wife only had 500,000 VND left in their pockets, their last asset was an old laptop that was pawned to pay off debt. That Tet, with no money left to go home, Thuan called his mother to apologize for his failure. "That was a moment I can never forget," he said, rubbing his eyes, choking up a bit.

The first official export shipment to the US

Exporting to the US is like a dream

Thuan has never been to the US, never researched the market, but up to now, Ca Men snakehead fish noodle soup is causing a fever in the Vietnamese community in this country. Thuan said that since completing the product, Ca Men's dream was to bring Quang Tri specialties to consumers nationwide and overseas Vietnamese.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Huyen (Jolie Nguyen), President and Founder of LNS - a unit specializing in importing Vietnamese agricultural products and foodstuffs distributed to about 1,000 supermarkets and stores - confirmed that at the beginning of this year, Ca Men's snakehead fish porridge suddenly became "hot" in the US market, especially in Houston. Out of curiosity, she also looked to buy it. The first time she saw a packaged dish with large pieces of snakehead fish, the taste was no different from cooking at home, so she decided to find a source to import the goods.

Thuan researched the export process himself and sent a letter directly to the US food authority. But surprisingly, a US distribution partner happened to enjoy the snakehead fish noodle soup packaged from hand-carried goods and proactively contacted him.

"There are many terms set by the distributor, including the requirement to print their name on the packaging. I accept but I absolutely do not change the brand name Ca Men. It is a souvenir of the Central region's children far from home, the cradle that nurtures the aspiration to elevate the cuisine of my homeland and my colleagues. Seeing many Vietnamese products having to be exported under the brand or name of another company, I find this a disadvantage. In particular, this product is created with the brainpower, with technological research and with the enthusiasm of the Central region's children who always turn to their homeland. For that reason, I convinced the distributor in the US to keep the Ca Men brand even though the product is quite new. Not only that, we also included a poem introducing the hometown specialty: Not all Ma people are five-star chefs , but the best meal of our life is always cooked by Ma. Delicious dishes that nourish children from childhood. Even though cassava is grilled or sweet potato is fried, the fragrance of mother's love will last forever... Like a hometown dish "porridge - snakehead fish". From rice grains in the fields, from delicious fish in the fields. It's not just about eating food, we eat a whole part of our mind . We eat nostalgia, we eat memories of our hometown... "For me, signed contracts and exported shipments are a long-standing aspiration, but I didn't expect it to come so quickly, like a dream", Thuan confided. The first exported products were thanks to overseas Vietnamese customers carrying them by hand. One person introduced another, the demand grew higher and higher and became a trend without us knowing. I remember when we launched the product to the market, we had to sell each package one by one, and now a quick-witted distributor in the US has contacted us to cooperate. The contract is signed until 2026, worth more than 5 million USD... It sounds short, but in reality, it is very difficult to officially export food to the US.

I have contacted many other distribution channels in Europe, Asia and places with a large Vietnamese population. The product has been well received in the domestic market and in the US, which is a solid foundation for Ca Men to raise its aspirations to a higher level. Currently, Ca Men has a staff of dozens of people, the product is selling well and is preparing to launch another product, Nghe An eel vermicelli. Then step by step, I researched to bring regional products to many places using Vietnamese processing technology. The most difficult problem in the instant food industry is to ensure the criteria of convenience and quality, that is the reason why they fully exploit instant noodles and transform them into many different products. Fresh processing technology and packaging without preservatives is probably the biggest difference and competitive advantage in the culinary field.

In addition to the requirements on product quality, safety and stability, the procedures are also strict. Initially, when Thuan sent a letter asking for confirmation, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent someone to guide him. In addition, he had to meet a series of other legal requirements as well as have a representative of the US authorities personally come to the factory in Vietnam for appraisal. Fortunately, the distributor also actively supported the procedures to be completed quickly. In June 2023, Thuan's first container of Quang Tri snakehead fish noodle soup started to go to the US by sea and was quickly sold out. The distributor urged him to continue production to export the second container. "I remember one time at nearly 2 a.m., an old lady over 80 years old who had settled in the US for 3 decades called and cried. She said the porridge tasted like the one her mother used to cook, so she was very touched," Thuan said. In total, from June 2022 to June this year, Thuan sold 200,000 packages of Quang Tri snakehead fish noodle soup domestically and internationally. But for him, the most important thing is to promote a purely Vietnamese brand and not "borrow" anyone else's name.

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