Those who cherish the quintessence from mother sea

(Baothanhhoa.vn) - In modern life, with the increasing appearance of fish sauce brands on the market, traditional fish sauce of Khuc Phu (Hoang Phu commune, Hoang Hoa) has been gradually affirming its brand and quality, becoming a familiar spice in Vietnamese family meals. That delicious flavor is not only distilled from the essence of the mother sea with a manual processing process but also filled with love for family, homeland, awareness of preserving and promoting the traditional craft of the homeland of the young people here.

The development of the traditional fish sauce craft and village of Khuc Phu is due to the constant efforts of young people.

1. Mr. Nguyen Van Cac (39 years old, Bac Son village) is the third generation in a family with many generations of traditional fish sauce making. Life has pushed him to a completely different direction. However, after many years of making a living and traveling abroad, the taste of fish sauce in his hometown has not faded in the mind of the son of the fish sauce village but has become more and more memorable and loving. He misses the warm, happy family meals; misses the characteristic smell of the fish sauce fermentation tanks; misses the image of his grandmother and mother working hard to sell fish sauce near and far... That love and longing has become a great motivation for him to decide to return to his hometown, continuing the traditional profession of his ancestors.

As a hard-working, studious person with experience accumulated after many years of traveling abroad, Mr. Cac understands that: Even with a family foundation, pursuing and developing a traditional profession in general, and the traditional fish sauce profession in particular, is not an easy thing. He spares no time, money, or effort to travel, explore, and learn the profession in some localities where the traditional fish sauce production and processing profession is well developed.

From those trips, Mr. Cac learned many things, he realized the differences that create the value and brand of the product. Famous traditional fish sauce villages such as Phu Quoc (Kien Giang), Phan Thiet ( Binh Thuan ) ... all have large investments in facilities, are sensitive to the times, and boldly change to better meet market demand and customer tastes without losing the traditional core and unique features of the product.

In 2017, Mr. Cac decided to establish Khue Cac Company Limited, operating in many fields, in which the processing and trading of Khuc Phu Ba Hoan fish sauce is the main focus. After establishing the company, Mr. Cac moved back to his hometown of Hoang Phu, and in 2019, he started building his first factory.

Stemming from the concerns of how to improve product quality, meet market demand, customer tastes while still maintaining the traditional, artisanal core and accumulated experience, Mr. Cac boldly invested in importing wooden barrels of boi loi for use, replacing barrels, plastic barrels, and cement tanks commonly used in the fermentation and salting process. Mr. Cac shared: “When we first built the factory, we encountered many difficulties and challenges. However, I always thought that if we did not dare to change, we would not be able to find a place and develop with the profession. Although we knew that the investment cost of buying wooden barrels of boi loi was very high, we were still determined to do it to have delicious, quality drops of fish sauce to send to our customers.”

Along with improving quality, Mr. Cac focuses on perfecting product specifications, designs, and labels. At the same time, he actively promotes communication and product promotion through channels: website, fanpage, participating in fairs, trade promotion, market expansion... Up to now, Khuc Phu Ba Hoan fish sauce has been and is being favored by many customers. With key products such as: anchovy fish sauce (selling price ranges from 170 - 200 thousand VND/box of 2 bottles); squid fish sauce (selling price ranges from around 300 thousand VND/liter), every year, the company produces and distributes to the market about 20 - 30 thousand liters of fish sauce. The scale of the business has been expanded with 2 factories; creating jobs for 4 regular workers with an average income of about 10 million VND/month, 20 seasonal workers, mainly local workers.

2. Following the scent of fish sauce from Khuc Phu village, we visited the traditional fish sauce processing workshop of Nguyen Minh Dao's family - one of the young men who always strives to develop the traditional profession of his family and hometown with the brand name of Khuc Phu Ba Hao fish sauce. Ba Hao is the name of Nguyen Minh Dao's mother, a woman who has spent more than half of her life making traditional fish sauce. Ba Hao has a hard life and is at a disadvantage compared to many other women because her husband died early, leaving her to raise her children alone.

Mr. Dao said: “My family has been making traditional fish sauce since the very difficult and hard days. We had little capital so we bought raw materials seasonally, and after finishing a season, we had to weigh and measure the amount of money we had to start a new season. When the fish sauce was made, my mother carried it dozens of kilometers to sell in all the big and small markets around the area. In 1990 and 1991, thanks to the raw materials provided by the family's fishing boats, Ms. Hao made fish sauce and sold it to other people. Many fish sauce production facilities heard about her and came to her house to ask to buy her fish sauce”...

Family stories, career stories and craft villages are intertwined in each of Dao's confessions and confidences. The day he decided to put aside all his work and plan to return to his hometown in Japan to "take over" his mother's work, Dao was overwhelmed with emotions. Mrs. Hao is getting older every day, and Dao is the only son in the family, so he wants to spend more time with his mother and help her. Above all, he always thinks that he has the responsibility to preserve and develop the hundreds of years old traditional profession of his ancestors, which is also his mother's passion for decades. With his acumen, in recent times, Dao's family has focused on investing in building and developing a brand identity system (packaging, labels), product finishing and packaging processes, and making efforts to expand the market, so that the flavor of Khuc Phu Ba Hao fish sauce can reach a large number of consumers in and outside the province.

Not only investing and taking care of the development of household and business economy , the young people of Khuc Phu village have joined hands to develop the Hoang Phu seafood production and trading service cooperative, on the basis of changing the name of the former Khuc Phu fish sauce production and processing cooperative. The board of directors are young, dynamic, enthusiastic people, dedicated to the traditional profession of the village. The purpose of the name change is to improve product quality, diversify products, expand the scale of the profession and the market in accordance with the spirit of collective and private economy going hand in hand, each developing household and processing facility will contribute to the bustling song of the fish sauce village.

Currently, the cooperative has 4 households/7 products achieving OCOP, including 1 product achieving 4-star OCOP (Mrs. Hoan's anchovy fish sauce), 6 products achieving 3-star OCOP... Mr. Nguyen Van Cac, Director of Hoang Phu Seafood Production and Trading Service Cooperative, confided: "In the current context, professions and craft villages that want to survive and develop need to pay attention to and focus on applying science and technology, strongly transforming digitally in both production and marketing and business. Therefore, we really hope to receive attention, create conditions to access preferential loans, have mechanisms and policies to promote cooperative activities to have more motivation to develop the profession".

The drops of fish sauce with the salty taste of the ocean mixed with the sweat and tears of parents have given wings to the dreams and aspirations of countless children born on this land. The craft village is a solid foundation for young people like Mr. Cac and Mr. Dao to go out and find a living. And this is also the place that always waits, with open arms, to welcome the children who have gone far away to return, continuing to nurture the aspirations to live and contribute to the development of the homeland.

Article and photos: Xuan Thuy

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/nhung-nguoi-chat-chiu-tinh-tuy-tu-bien-me-251180.htm