Red Boat Fish makes Vietnamese fish sauce using two simple ingredients: anchovies and salt. Based in Phu Quoc, Vietnam, Red Boat uses traditional methods to make its world-famous condiment. “Fish sauce is the backbone of Vietnamese cuisine,” says Chuong Pham, founder and CEO of Red Boat Fish Sauce. “This island is known for producing the best fish sauce in the world.”
The process of making fish sauce begins in the ocean. A fishing boat, accompanied by three light boats, heads out into the ocean in search of anchovies. Once a school of anchovies is spotted, the light boats are illuminated to attract the fish. From there, the fishing boat’s crew can scoop the fish into their nets, throw them back to the boat, and immediately salt them for preservation. “You have to give credit to the fisherman,” says Pham.
Black anchovies from the Phu Quoc Sea have a higher protein content and are heavily salted and then left to ferment for a period of time. Red Boat ferments its fish using traditional methods in its 75-barrel warehouse. Each barrel can hold around 13 tonnes of salted anchovies. Led by production manager Anh Hong Tran Thi, the team at the barrel warehouse regularly drains water from the barrels, tests the salinity of the drained liquid and adds new salt to the barrels.
The Red Boat team tastes the sauce. The sauce that has been fermenting for a month is still quite light in colour and is too salty because the fish proteins have not yet broken down sufficiently. The three-month-old sauce is a bit darker in colour and less salty, but is not quite ready yet. The one-year-old sauce has a deep amber colour, is quite viscous and has a sweet aftertaste – ideal characteristics for fish sauce.
See the latest Sellers episode to learn how Red Boat makes, bottles and exports its world-famous fish sauce.
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