January 2, 2020

Japanese food producer builds shrimp byproducts processing plant in Vietnam

Japanese food producer Takesho Food and Ingredients Inc. is set to build in Vietnam a US$8-million shrimp byproducts processing plant that will produce spices for the food industry.

The project was granted approval by the government of Can Tho city, the site of the facility, and construction is scheduled to start this January, The Saigon Times reported. The facility will rise in a two-hectare land in the city's Tra Noc 2 Industrial Zone.

Le Viet Dung, vice president of Can Tho University, said it had been wasteful to not process local agro and seafood byproducts.

Takesho and Can Tho University, thus, studied, among others, ways of converting shrimp heads and shells into spices.

With a machinery worth over $1 million that Takesho had provided the university to serve research activities, the process of extracting the protein in shrimp heads to make spices and food materials was completed earlier than expected, Dung said.