CAN THO – The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), under the United States Department of Agriculture, has certified six more Vietnamese firms as eligible to export tra fish to the U.S. market.
The decision came following a proposal made in early March by the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (Nafiqad) under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The six processors are Seafood United Corporation, Atlantic Seafood, Basa Mekong, High quality tra fish export and production plant, Co May 2 seafood processor, and Frozen Food Vietnam, according to Nafiqad.
The certification has raised the number of Vietnamese enterprises certified by FSIS as eligible to ship tra fish to the U.S. market to 19.
Nafiqad had earlier sent registration dossiers to the U.S. agency, said Le Ba Anh, deputy head of Nafiqad.
Besides, the Vietnamese department asked FSIS to allow local exporters to ship processed and value-added tra fish products to the U.S. as Vietnam is currently just exporting semi-processed tra fish stateside.
Due to the impact of the Covid pandemic, FSIS conducted a remote inspection into Vietnam’s tra fish food safety control system from March 23 to April 28 last year, according to Nafiqad.
On October 5, 2021, FSIS released the final report on its online inspection with the recognition of the Vietnamese tra fish industry’s equivalence.
