6. Knowledge, talent and shared infrastructure

In one paragraph. Vietnam is not starting from zero in the sciences that feed alternative protein, but it is starting from almost zero in the technologies that turn them into food. Its universities and institutes publish fish and shrimp feeding trials at regional levels, express proteins (including growth factors used in cultivated-meat media) in yeast, culture human stem cells in serum-free media, engineer the koji mould, and grow microalgae. They publish almost nothing on texturisation, mycoprotein, precision-fermented food proteins or food-grade fish cell lines, and Vietnam's research intensity on novel foods is about a quarter to a third of Thailand's (a quarter on OpenAIRE; about 31% on a broader OpenAlex basket added in edition 1.1 ¹ VN-directTrung bình). The binding constraint is not ideas but shared infrastructure: we found no open pilot fermentation facility, no food extrusion line and no laboratory offering the amino-acid and digestibility tests a protein-quality claim or a novel-food dossier needs.

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#6.1 Research output: small in novel food, regional-level in feed

We counted Vietnam-affiliated publications from 2015 to September 2026 in the OpenAIRE scholarly database and compared them with Southeast Asian peers (OpenAlex was rate-limited; method in K. Research landscape). All counts are lower bounds and include some off-topic records.

Source: ² VN-directTrung bình. Indonesia is excluded from the intensity comparison because the database indexes many Indonesian national journals.

Vietnam's research output against its neighbours

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

Reading. Vietnam's weakness is specific to novel food technologies; in algae and in aquafeed protein replacement it is at the regional level (and the aquafeed count is certainly an undercount; a broader term search found about 20 Vietnamese replacement studies ^3,4 VN-directTrung bình). After reading titles, Vietnam has zero or near-zero published work in precision fermentation or recombinant food proteins, mycoprotein, fish or shrimp cell lines for food, and cultivated meat (one 2024 legal analysis), and at most one study on meat-analogue extrusion ^2,5 VN-directTrung bình. About six Vietnamese papers address plant-based meat products (reviews, a soy-burger shelf-life study, a partly meat-free sausage) ^2,6,7 VN-directTrung bình.

#6.2 Five adjacent strengths

1. Aquafeed nutrition trials (Can Tho University, Nha Trang University). Measured Vietnamese benchmarks include: soy protein concentrate replacing 40% of fishmeal protein in snakehead with no loss of growth; fermented soybean meal with 88.8% protein digestibility in whiteleg shrimp; spent brewer's yeast replacing up to 60% of fishmeal protein in giant freshwater prawn ^11,12,13 VN-directCao. These are tank trials, but they are exactly the evidence a feed-first play needs.
2. Recombinant protein expression in Pichia (VNU-HCM University of Science; VAST Institute of Biotechnology), including three growth factors used in cultivated-meat media (FGF-2, KGF and PDGF-BB) and an alkaline phytase aimed at aquafeed ^14,15,16,17 VN-directTrung bình. None of this work has targeted food proteins such as dairy, egg or heme proteins.
3. Stem-cell culture (Vinmec; VNU-HCM Stem Cell Institute), including tests of serum-free and xeno-free media, where only one of four commercial kits worked for cord-blood cells ^18,19 VN-directTrung bình.
4. Fungal genetics for koji mould and Cordyceps (VNU Hanoi University of Science): transformation systems and gene-deletion tools in Aspergillus oryzae ^20,21 VN-directTrung bình.
5. Microalgae cultivation (VAST Institute of Biotechnology; Vietnam National University of Agriculture), including a salt-tolerant spirulina strain reaching 48.7% protein ²² VN-directTrung bình.

Two further assets are specific and under-used:

• Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) has recovered 90% of the protein from rice distillers' grain (55% to 80% protein on a dry basis) and made protein products from spent brewer's yeast ^23,10,24 VN-directTrung bình.
• A national duckweed collection of more than 100 wild samples and a Vietnamese-led duckweed genome, with no protein work yet ^25,26 VN-directTrung bình.

#6.3 Research gaps Vietnam is well placed to fill

Each of these combines a Vietnamese raw material, species or skill with an absence of published work (detail in K. Research landscape):

1. Food-grade adaptation of striped catfish (tra) and shrimp cells. Continuous striped-catfish lines exist in India, but they are serum-dependent virology lines, and no true continuous shrimp line exists (the "PmLyO-Sf9" line is part insect) ^27,28 generalCao.
2. Low-cost Pichia-made growth factors tested on fish cells.
3. Fungal biomass from cassava pulp and peel with a food-grade safety package (cyanide, mycotoxins, RNA, digestibility).
4. Characterised Vietnamese A. oryzae (tương) strains as biomass-protein hosts, with the strain safety data regulators will ask for (cyclopiazonic acid and 3-nitropropionic acid) ²⁹ generalCao.
5. Texturisation of rice distillers'-grain and broken-rice protein.
6. Protein extraction and feeding trials with Vietnamese duckweed clones.
7. Protein ingredients from salt-tolerant spirulina.
8. Seaweed protein for food and feed.
9. Bacterial protein from pig-farm and cassava-starch biogas.
10. A DIAAS or PDCAAS reference dataset for Vietnamese protein ingredients (mung bean, rice, spirulina, catfish side-stream isolates, spent yeast). Pig-based DIAAS values exist abroad (mung bean 86, soy isolate 97, brown rice concentrate 42), but human digestibility of mung bean measured in children was about 20% lower than the pig estimate ^30,31,32 generalCao.
11. Bacterial single-cell protein and fungal meal in pangasius and whiteleg shrimp diets.

#6.4 Shared infrastructure: the binding constraint

• Pilot fermentation. No Vietnamese facility publishes an open, food-grade pilot fermentation service. FIRI's pilot centre in Hanoi lists soy-milk, tofu, juice and powder processes but no fermenters; the HCMC Biotechnology Center lists agriculture and aquaculture technology transfer, not contract fermentation ^33,34,35 VN-directTrung bình.
• Extrusion. No food extruder was found at any university or institute ^4,33 VN-directTrung bình.
• Testing. FIRI's NACEFA laboratory (VILAS 259) and NIFC are accredited for proximate analysis, contaminants, mycotoxins and microbiology, but none of the laboratory pages we read lists amino-acid profiles or protein digestibility ^{36,37,38,39,40} VN-directTrung bình. PDCAAS and DIAAS work will probably need an overseas laboratory for now.
• Feed trials. MAE has consolidated its state feed and aquafeed trial centres (Hanoi for livestock from 1 October 2026; one aquafeed centre with sub-centres in Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City), and both may sell services ^41,42 VN-directCao. University wet labs (Can Tho, Nha Trang) and private contract labs (ShrimpVet) complement them.
• Parks. Saigon Hi-Tech Park (913 ha) has an incubator, an R&D centre and a biotech centre ⁴³ VN-directCao. A 2026 decree lets provinces create high-tech agriculture zones with R&D and interest-subsidy incentives ⁴⁴ VN-directTrung bình.

#6.5 Talent

Degrees in food technology, biotechnology and aquaculture are offered across a dozen universities. Can Tho University alone will admit 860 students in these three programmes in 2026 (300, 240 and 320), within a total quota of 11,850 ⁴⁵ VN-directCao. We could not sum a national intake (several admissions sites failed or showed quotas only as images) ^45,46 VN-directCao. The skills gap is specialist rather than general: the literature shows almost no Vietnamese work in extrusion, food-grade downstream processing of microbial biomass, sensory and structure work on meat analogues, protein-quality scoring, or cell culture of fish and livestock cells for food ^4,2 VN-directThấp. Startups in those areas will import know-how and people, which adds cost and key-person risk. We found no salary survey for food or biotech engineers.

#6.6 Research funding

• NAFOSTED (national science foundation) is the funder most often acknowledged in relevant Vietnamese papers; typical grant sizes were not established ^47,48,49 VN-directTrung bình.
• VINIF (Vingroup) mainly funds people: about 1,300 master's and doctoral scholarships, 180 postdoctoral fellowships and 117 projects in 2018 to 2023 ⁴⁷ VN-directTrung bình.
• International: ACIAR spends about AUD 5.4 million across 23 Vietnamese projects in 2025/26, none on alternative protein ⁵⁰ VN-directCao; the GFI research grant programme lists no grantee in Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia on the page we read, and is closed ^51,52 generalTrung bình; the largest recent open call (Coefficient Giving's alternative-protein R&D request, up to USD 30 million, international applicants welcome) closed on 15 September 2026 ⁵³ generalCao.
• Law 93/2025 allows acceptance of research risk and liability exemption when procedures are followed, which a national protein-research programme could use ^54,55 VN-directTrung bình.

#6.7 What this means

• Researchers: the fastest route to a visible track record is to point existing tools at food protein: Pichia for a food protein, A. oryzae biomass on cassava residue, spirulina protein extraction, duckweed protein from the national collection, a DIAAS dataset. Publish in indexed journals with DOIs; much applied Vietnamese work is invisible abroad.
• Policy makers: three pieces of shared kit would unlock most gaps: a food-grade pilot fermentation train (about 50 to 3,000 litres with downstream processing), a pilot extrusion line, and amino-acid and digestibility methods added to an accredited laboratory's scope. A directed call on "protein from Vietnamese side streams and species" would turn scattered groups into a network (Policy options).
• Investors and startups: credible trial partners exist for feed (Can Tho, Nha Trang, the state aquafeed centre) and for side-stream protein (HUST); ask founders for their trial data. Do not assume any Vietnamese partner owns an extruder or a 100-litre-plus food-grade fermenter until confirmed.
• International bodies: Vietnam has had no GFI research grant; the most fundable public goods are a food-grade catfish or shrimp cell-line adaptation project, a Vietnamese protein-quality database and duckweed germplasm protein screening.

Related: K. Research landscape, L. Labs and talent, J. Science.