Brief for universities and research institutes

The short version. Vietnam's novel-food research intensity is about a quarter to a third of Thailand's, but it is at the regional level in aquafeed protein replacement and microalgae, and has real skills in yeast protein expression, stem-cell culture and koji genetics. Vietnam has almost no published work on texturisation, mycoprotein, precision-fermented food proteins or food cell lines. The most useful research combines a Vietnamese raw material or species with a missing study, and the most useful infrastructure is shared.

#Where Vietnam stands

Vietnam's research output against its neighbours

Publications 2015 to September 2026 per 10,000 national publications (OpenAIRE)

• Strengths: fish and shrimp feeding trials; protein expression in yeast (including growth factors); serum-free stem-cell culture; gene tools for Aspergillus oryzae and Cordyceps; microalgae cultivation, including a salt-tolerant spirulina at 48.7% protein (Knowledge and talent).
• Gaps: extrusion and texturisation (at most one study), mycoprotein, precision-fermented food proteins, fish or shrimp food cell lines, and any Vietnamese DIAAS or PDCAAS study (Knowledge and talent).
• Infrastructure: no open pilot fermenter, no food extruder at any university or institute we found, and no laboratory page listing amino-acid profiles or protein digestibility (Knowledge and talent, L. Labs and talent).

#Research questions Vietnam is well placed to answer

1. A DIAAS or PDCAAS reference dataset for Vietnamese proteins: mung bean, rice, spirulina, catfish side-stream isolates, spent yeast. Human mung bean digestibility is about 20% below pig values (Technology fit).
2. Bacterial single-cell protein and fungal meal in pangasius and whiteleg shrimp diets, including early life stages and functional endpoints (survival, disease challenge).
3. Mixed-culture protein from tofu and soy-milk wastewater in shrimp (a 2025 preprint reports up to 90% fishmeal replacement).
4. Thermotolerant yeasts (40 to 45 °C) on raw cassava starch and pulp, with measured cooling savings in a tropical plant.
5. Fungal biomass from cassava pulp and peel with a food-grade safety package (cyanide, mycotoxins, RNA, digestibility).
6. Characterised Vietnamese tương (A. oryzae) strains with cyclopiazonic acid and 3-nitropropionic acid data.
7. Duckweed: yields, manganese and heavy metals on Mekong water; protein concentrates.
8. Texturisation of rice distillers'-grain and broken-rice protein; extrusion of local legume blends.
9. Serum-free, suspension adaptation of striped catfish cells; Pichia-made growth factors tested on fish cells.
10. Bacterial protein from pig-farm and cassava-starch biogas.

Source: Knowledge and talent section 6.3 and K. Research landscape.

#Public goods research bodies could lead

• Protein-quality laboratory (amino acids, DIAAS) at a national reference laboratory (policy option PO-027).
• Public feed trials of microbial protein as state science tasks, whose results then qualify for the legal exemption from separate trials (PO-021).
• Yearly by-product atlas of volume, location, price and composition (PO-028).
• Open cost model for fermentation with Vietnamese inputs, and a public series of domestic feed-ingredient prices (Plays, P6).

#Funding and partners

• Domestic: NAFOSTED (most acknowledged), VINIF (mainly scholarships and fellowships), state science tasks under the new science law, which allows acceptance of research risk (Knowledge and talent).
• International: ACIAR funds 23 Vietnamese projects, none on alternative protein; alternative-protein grant windows (for example Coefficient Giving's USD 30 million request) are episodic and need a ready proposal and often an international co-applicant (Capital).
• Partners: Thai groups (cassava-pulp thermotolerant yeasts; EECi pilot plant), Chinese groups (cassava-to-protein and gas-to-protein feed), Indian fish cell repositories, and Singapore's pilot and regulatory ecosystem (Region).

#Talent

Can Tho University alone admits 860 students a year in food technology, biotechnology and aquaculture. The gap is specialist: extrusion, food-grade downstream processing, sensory and structure work on analogues, protein-quality scoring, and cell culture for food (Knowledge and talent).

Read next: Knowledge and talent · Technology fit · J. Science · K. Research landscape · L. Labs and talent

#Looking to 2050 (edition 1.1)

• Vietnam is nearly absent from the frontier fields: 2 of 494 gas-fermentation protein papers (2016 to 2026), none on mycoprotein or molecular farming. The 2025 to 2026 wave of Vietnamese work is mostly domestic food technology (Frontier technology).
• The futures questions research bodies could answer best: feed conversion and soybean-meal inclusion by species; EPA plus DHA needs of Vietnamese species; pretreatment of high-silica Mekong straw; life-cycle data for cassava fermentation with biogas; strains that grow at 40 °C; and cell lines from Vietnamese species for the 2040s (Q. Open questions).
• Public goods: a yearly national protein and feed balance, and a published tracker of the 16 scenario signposts (Robust moves).
• Foresight capacity: Vietnam's own foresight studies advise small, high-quality scenario workshops; one on the Part V scenarios would test our axes and vision (U. Futures method).