3. The industrial base: fermentation, feed and food processing

In one paragraph. Vietnam's industrial base is large where alternative protein needs buyers and co-packers, and thin where it needs process equipment. Feed mills run at about half their capacity, about six firms make most shrimp feed, and frozen-food processors already make vegetarian lines next to meat. But the sterile, aerated fermentation tanks that biomass and precision fermentation need sit almost entirely inside three amino-acid producers (Vedan, Ajinomoto and Daesang), none of which publicly offers contract manufacturing. We found no food-grade contract fermentation, no open pilot fermenter, no protein-isolate or concentrate plant, and no Vietnamese maker of textured vegetable protein. Soybean crushing is growing fast, but only to make feed.

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#3.1 Fermentation: large in volume, captive in practice

Aerobic fermentation (stirred, aerated, sterilisable tanks, the kind used for amino acids, yeast and precision fermentation) is concentrated in three groups:

Our modelled estimate of installed aerobic, aseptic fermentation volume in Vietnam is about 11,000 to 34,000 m3, almost all inside these three groups. Adding anaerobic volume (fuel ethanol about 38,000 to 58,000 m3, brewing about 170,000 to 410,000 m3) gives roughly 220,000 to 500,000 m3 of fermentation vessels in total (modelled estimate from published capacities; see Facilities and capacity and fermentation_volume_estimate.csv) VN-directLow.

Other fermentation assets:

• Baker's yeast: AB Mauri at La Nga, Dong Nai (6,000 t/yr in 2019, when it was suspended for a pollution incident; current status not re-checked) and Saf-Viet (Lesaffre) in Tay Ninh (former Long An), capacity undisclosed ^7,8,9 VN-directMedium. Yeast is the closest existing process to yeast single-cell protein, and it is small.
• Fuel ethanol: six or seven plants with about 450,000 to 490,000 m3 a year of design capacity; only three ran in mid-2026, and E10 demand is now pulling idle plants back to fuel ^10,11,12 VN-directMedium. Ethanol fermenters are not aerated, so converting one to protein would need a retrofit, and the conversion would compete with E10 economics.
• Breweries: Sabeco runs 26 breweries with 2.4 billion litres a year of design capacity (about 60% used in 2024); Heineken's Vung Tau plant has 1.1 billion litres approved to rise to 1.6 billion; Carlsberg's Phu Bai plant in Hue reached 600 million litres ^13,14,15 VN-directMedium. They matter for side streams (spent grain, spent yeast) and trained staff, not for aerobic capacity.
• Biologics: Vietnam has 12 GMP-WHO veterinary vaccine plants, and Vabiotech makes a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine expressed in yeast ^16,17 VN-directMedium. A 100-million-dose human vaccine plant (VNVC, technology from Sanofi) is due in Tay Ninh (former Long An) at the end of 2027 ^18,19 VN-directMedium. These are sources of GMP skills and quality systems, not tank volume.

No contract fermentation. We found no Vietnamese company offering food-grade contract fermentation at pilot or commercial scale, and no public facility that publishes an open pilot-fermentation service ^2,4,20,21,22 VN-directMedium. The Food Industries Research Institute's (FIRI) pilot centre in Hanoi lists soy-milk, tofu, juice and powder processes but no fermenters ²⁰ VN-directHigh. This is absence of evidence from published sources and should be tested by direct enquiry. Vedan's falling Vietnamese MSG sales and replacement-only capex ³ suggest that the incumbents could have both idle capacity and a motive to talk. That is a hypothesis, not a finding.

#3.2 Feed: big, half-used, and consolidating

• Scale and utilisation. In 2023 there were 269 industrial feed mills with 43.2 Mt a year of design capacity. They produced 20.8 Mt in 2022, about 48% utilisation. Foreign-invested firms owned 90 of the mills, 51.3% of capacity and 62.5% of output ²³ VN-directMedium.
• Aquafeed. About 5.5 Mt of installed capacity at 60% to 70% utilisation in 2025. Six firms (Sheng Long, owned by Haid; C.P.; Uni-President; Tongwei; Grobest; Gromax) supplied about 640 kt of shrimp feed, roughly 70% of the market ^24,25 VN-directMedium.
• Consolidation in 2025 and 2026.
  • Royal De Heus bought CJ's regional feed business, CJ Feed & Care (announced 1 October 2025, closed 3 March 2026), covering 17 mills across five countries ^26,27 VN-directHigh. De Heus Vietnam now lists 21 plants: 14 livestock, 6 aquafeed and 1 premix ²⁸ VN-directMedium.
  • De Heus opened a marine and cold-water fish feed mill in Vinh Long in July 2026, 168,000 t a year by the company's figure (trade press reported 84,000) ^29,30 VN-directMedium.
  • Cargill left aquafeed in May 2025; C.P. opened a 124,800 t/yr shrimp-feed plant in Ca Mau in August 2026 ^31,32 VN-directMedium.
  • Skretting Vietnam (Nutreco) and Entobel announced a partnership on 26 November 2025 and began what they describe as Vietnam's first commercial shrimp feed containing insect meal ³³ VN-directMedium.

What this means. A new feed protein has relatively few, sophisticated buyers. Spare pelleting capacity is widespread, so feed trials are easy to host. The new plants target high-protein marine and shrimp feeds, which is where fishmeal substitutes earn the most (Feed and aquafeed market).

#3.3 Soy and protein-ingredient processing

• Crushing. VAL (Bunge and Wilmar) at Phu My 1 Industrial Park, Ho Chi Minh City (former Ba Ria-Vung Tau), crushes 2.6 Mt of soybeans a year after a USD 100 million second line in December 2025, and targets 30% of domestic soybean meal ^34,35 VN-directMedium. USDA forecasts national crush rising to 3.0 Mt in 2027 ³⁶ VN-directMedium. No food-grade defatted flake or soy-protein line is on record.
• Protein isolates and concentrates. We found no soy, pea or rice protein isolate or concentrate plant in Vietnam ^37,38 VN-directMedium. Distributors sell Chinese soy protein isolate and Chinese wheat gluten in 20 to 25 kg bags ^38,39,40 VN-directMedium.
• Textured vegetable protein (TVP). No Vietnamese TVP extruder was identified. Chinese extrusion lines of 100 to 2,000 kg/h are marketed in Vietnam, and at least one chay maker says its raw materials are imported ^41,42 VN-directMedium. The only extrusion we documented is feed-grade (for example, Haid's seven fish-feed extruders in Vinh Long) ³² VN-directMedium.
• Soy milk and tofu. Vinasoy (owned by Quang Ngai Sugar) had 390 million litres a year of soy-milk capacity in 2022 and holds about 80% of the soy-milk market ^37,43 VN-directMedium. Tofu is mostly artisanal. One industrial maker, ToFu House in Hung Yen, reported 150 to 500 t a month and pilot fields of domestic soybeans ^44,45 VN-directMedium. Tofu skin (tàu hũ ky) comes from craft villages such as My Hoa in Vinh Long, mostly from imported beans ⁴⁶ VN-directMedium.

#3.4 Food processors and co-packers

• Meat and frozen-food processors with vegetarian lines: Vissan (Ho Chi Minh City; about two-thirds owned by the state trading group SATRA, about a quarter by Masan MEATLife) ⁴⁷; CJ Foods Vietnam (Cau Tre and bibigo brands, owned by CJ CheilJedang) ⁴⁸; Cholimex and SG Food (both in Vinh Loc Industrial Park) ^49,50 VN-directMedium. These firms make đồ chay on the same lines as meat products and are the most plausible co-packers for plant-based products.
• Private labels: Saigon Co.op's Coop Select vegetarian lines are made under contract (one line by GN Foods in Tay Ninh) ⁵¹ VN-directMedium. Retail private labels show that chay contract manufacturing already works.
• Dairy: Vinamilk, TH and Nutifood all sell plant-based milks; several are blended with cow's milk ^52,53 VN-directMedium.
• Starch and glucose: Vedan built 140,000 t a year of glucose syrup capacity and sells glucose to third parties; Daesang runs a starch plant in Tay Ninh ^1,5 VN-directMedium. Glucose syrup from cassava is the obvious local carbon source for fermentation, and it already exists.
• Spray drying: available in instant-coffee and dairy plants; toll drying for third parties was not documented.

#3.5 Shared infrastructure and services

• Parks: Saigon Hi-Tech Park covers 913 ha with 165 projects and an incubator, an R&D centre and a biotech centre ⁵⁴ VN-directHigh. Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park in Hanoi has a 263 ha R&D zone ⁵⁵ VN-directMedium. A 2026 decree lets provinces create high-tech agriculture zones ⁵⁶ VN-directMedium.
• Testing: FIRI's NACEFA laboratory is ISO/IEC 17025-accredited (VILAS 259) and designated to test imported feed ingredients; NIFC is the Ministry of Health's reference food laboratory; QUATEST 3 opened a Dong Nai branch in September 2026 ^57,58,59 VN-directHigh. None of the laboratory pages we read lists amino-acid profiling or protein digestibility, the data a protein-quality claim or a novel-food dossier needs (Knowledge and talent).
• Feed trials: the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAE) consolidated its livestock feed trial centres into a central centre in Hanoi (from 1 October 2026) and its aquafeed trial centre into one national centre with sub-centres in Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City; both may sell services ^60,61 VN-directHigh.
• Engineering: plants are typically designed by foreign firms (Rieckermann designed the VNVC vaccine plant) and fitted out by local contractors (HTG Engineering built utilities and cleanrooms for Ajinomoto) ^18,62,63 VN-directMedium. We found no local maker of sanitary fermenters, extruders or spray dryers.

#3.6 What an alternative-protein venture can and cannot borrow

What Vietnam's industry can and cannot do today

Capabilities alternative protein needs, and whether they are open to new firms

• Exists, open
• Exists, access unclear
• Exists, closed
• Not found

Capability	Status	Exists in Vietnam	Who	Open to third parties
Aerobic, sterile fermentation at scale	Exists, closed	Yes (about 11,000 to 34,000 m3, modelled)	Vedan, Ajinomoto, Daesang	No published offer; JV or tolling would need negotiation
Food-grade contract fermentation (pilot or commercial)	Not found	Not found
Glucose from cassava starch	Exists, open	Yes	Vedan, others	Yes (Vedan sells glucose)
Feed pelleting and extrusion	Exists, open	Yes, about 48% utilised	269 feed mills	Trials easy to host
Food extrusion (TVP, high-moisture)	Not found	Not found
Protein isolate or concentrate	Not found	Not found
Food-grade soy flakes	Not found	Not found (crushing is feed-grade)	VAL could in principle	Unknown
Frozen chay co-packing	Exists, open	Yes	Vissan, CJ Foods, Cholimex, SG Food, GN Foods	Yes (private labels exist)
UHT plant-milk filling	Exists, access unclear	Yes	Vinasoy, Vinamilk, TH, Nutifood	Not documented
GMP biologics skills	Exists, closed	Yes	Vaccine and veterinary plants	People, not tanks
Accredited testing (proximate, contaminants)	Exists, open	Yes	NACEFA, NIFC, Eurofins, QUATEST 3	Yes
Amino-acid profile and digestibility testing	Not found	Not found on laboratory pages		Likely overseas for now
Official feed and aquafeed trials	Exists, open	Yes (state centres, reorganised 2025 to 2026)	MAE centres	Yes (services allowed)

For each reader.

• Investors: do not underwrite a thesis that assumes rentable aerobic fermentation in Vietnam. Treat Vedan and Ajinomoto as possible strategic partners (they have tanks, glucose, feed co-product businesses and falling or flat MSG sales), not as vendors.
• Startups: the shortest paths to scale are (a) tolling or JV talks with an amino-acid producer; (b) frozen-food co-packers that already make chay; (c) feed-mill trials, since mills have spare capacity. Bring your own extruder or fermenter otherwise.
• Manufacturers: a food-grade soy stream from the growing crush sector is the obvious feedstock for Vietnamese TVP; nobody makes it yet.
• Policy makers and international bodies: a shared, food-grade pilot facility (fermentation of about 50 to 3,000 litres, extrusion and spray drying) with open-access rules is the clearest missing public good. Saigon Hi-Tech Park or FIRI are natural hosts (Policy options).

Related: Facilities and capacity (plant-level data), L. Labs and talent (pilot and testing facilities), Plays.