Frozen catfish supply chain management in Vietnam : a case study of a medium scale company vs a large scale company | |
| Author | Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.FB-09-09 |
| Subject(s) | Frozen fish--Vietnam Business logistics--Vietnam |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. no. FB-09-09 |
| Abstract | Vietnam has been the world top producer of Pangasius catfish in recent years with an annual production of more than one million metric tons. The local farming and processing catfish industries are established, but need significant improvements particularly in management to ensure profitability, product quality and overall a sustainable development. This study attempted to review the current Pangasius catfish supply chain of two companies, company A (medium scale) and company B (large scale) located in Ben Tre and An Giang provinces southern Vietnam. Models for different stages of the supply chain such as farming, transportation and processing were developed based on the information collected from survey. These models were then used for comparison between the two production scales and for optimization. On the technical side of the processing stage, the quality of catfish fillets frozen by Block Freezing (BF) and Individual Quick Freezing (IQF) methods were evaluated by colorimeter, texture analyzer and sensory method. Lastly, an electronic-based traceability system using RFID technology was developed and tested at experimental scale. The results of this study showed that the catfish supply chain in Vietnam consists of many stakeholders. Linkages among them are, however, weak particularly between fish farmers and processors. For the farming stage, three different farm sizes (large, medium and small) were investigated in Ben Tre and An Giang provinces. The production cost per ha per crop and yield of catfish were not significant difference (P<0.05) among the farm groups. Feed was the major cost at all farming scales, accounted for 81 - 88% of the production cost. Compared with commercial pellets farm-made feed is significantly lower in cost, and thus should be used more to improve farming profitability. For transportation of live fish from farms to processing plant and of final product from processing plant to export port well-boats and refrigerated trucks with high transportation capacity should be used as the transportation cost is minimal. Analysis of the processing stage of two companies showed that the larger company had more profit than the smaller one thanks to a substantial income from processing value-added products from its by-products. As for the production cost of frozen fillet alone, the total cost for labour and electricity/fuel was about 67 - 69% in both companies. However, the larger company spent more on electricity/fuel due to a higher level of automation. The results of this study showed that frozen fillets are darker than fresh fillets (P<0.05). Both BF and IQF methods yielded frozen fillets that are not significantly different in all L, a, b values when thawed or cooked (P>0.05). However, the texture of BF-frozen fillets, either thawed or cooked, was firmer than that of IQF-frozen fillets. Similarly, fillet size had no effect on fillet colour, but texture firmness. Texture firmness increased in larger fillets either thawed or cooked. The measured force was highest (1,367.7 g in force) in thawed fillets larger than 220 g and lowest (1,000 g in force) in thawed fillets of 60 - 170 g. In addition, these results demonstrated successfully that RFID technology can be applied to the development of an electronic-based traceability system for catfish products originated from Vietnam. Such a traceability system has been designed and tested by modifying the current paper-based one adopted by Company B in An Giang province, Vietnam. It can trace back information related to catfish product when the accompanied RFID tag that contains primary keys passes the RFID reader. Important parameters such as farm ID, pond ID, harvest date, boat ID or ship No, date of receiving raw material and assigned raw material lot number are used for traceability purpose. Among these the last two parameters are the most important ones and both written on the RFID tag. The new system is much more convenient thanks to the developed Visual Basics interface for data input and tracing back information. This success can be considered as the beginning step for an establishment of a more complicated system which can be fully applied in practice |
| Year | 2009 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Thesis ; no. no. FB-09-09 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology (FB) |
| Chairperson(s) | Athapol Noomhorm; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Ranamukhaarachchi, S.L.;Rakshit, Sudip Kumar; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Government of Netherlands; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2009 |