Archives: Red Boat Fish Sauce
When I did my first Whole 30 back in April 2014, I was shocked at all the crap that sneaks its way into our food. Reading labels became an obsessive habit and it is one I carry to this day. I’ve said this many times before but will say it again - small changes over time can have a profound impact on our health.
If you want to read up on how this relates to food and household products, head here or here, respectively. One of the easiest ways to turn your health around is to read labels and be diligent at keeping sneaky sugars, additives and unneeded ingredients out of our food.
Today, I want to share a blog post I wrote in 2016 about a clean food product that entered my life in 2014 and still lives in my refrigerator: Red Boat Fish Sauce. We were lucky enough to get a tour of the facility where it is made in Phu Quoc right after we moved to Vietnam and this post shares our experience.
It is astonishing looking at fish sauce in Asia and all the additives and junk you can find in it when you read the label. Red Boat is a brand I started using often while living in NYC and embarking on my clean eating lifestyle. Although it is made in Vietnam, it is really hard to find in Asia! The bottle currently in my fridge was flown in by my mom in her suitcase… Since then, I have found it at Culina in Dempsey in Singapore but that is it. Thankfully, you don’t need a whole lot in recipes to add a punch of flavor.
Enjoy!
Archive: Red Boat Fish Sauce
I don’t know many people who would wake up at 7:30am to make it to a 9am tour of a fish sauce factory. Thankfully, my husband is a trooper and agreed to join me on our tour this morning of the Red Boat Fish Sauce facilities located along Duong Dong River. As a member of the Paleo/Whole 30 community, I have been a Red Boat user for about 2 years now. You cannot find better fish sauce anywhere in the US and that fact was beyond proven to us today. Red Boat is the purist, cleanest and most flavorful fish sauce on the market. Now if only they would “export” to the rest of Vietnam. Looks like I have another item to add to my list of things for my parents to bring over with them in the fall. Ironic, huh, that I will have to have my fish sauce “imported” back to it’s country of origin.
This whole adventure came about because of a blogger I follow on Instagram, @nomnompaleo, and her recent trip to Vietnam that was sponsored by Red Boat. Michelle Tam and her husband, Henry, run the Paleo-famous blog from the West Coast and were invited along with a bunch of American chefs to visit Phu Quoc and the Red Boat facilities a few months back. I read her post and listened to her podcast and made a mental note to look into a tour if and when we made it to the island.
Come to find out, they don’t offer tours like most of the other fish sauce factories on Phu Quoc. Slightly discouraged, I emailed the info@ email address thinking it was a hail mary and that I would have to give up my “dream” of going on a tour. I say “dream” because I’m not sure I ever dreamed of touring a factory full of dead anchovies and salt but I have always had a dream to connect to as many of my producers as possible.
To my surprise, I almost immediately received an email from the owner of Red Boat, Chuong Pham. He said that he wouldn’t be back in Phu Quoc until the day after we left to go back to Hanoi but he would see what he could do to secure an English-speaking guide for us. Within minutes, I had another email explaining he had found someone for 9am on Wednesday morning. He also sent along instructions for our hotel to call Ms. Hong, director of operations, so she could give an explanation as to how to find the facilities. As we later found out, Red Boat is kind of hidden and doesn’t open up to the public — their only visitors are usually chefs from the States.
We woke up slightly hungover (too many margaritas and Magners watching the sunset the night before) but determined to enjoy ourselves. Our hotel called us a taxi, explained how to find Red Boat and we were off! It was about a 15 minute drive into the town of Duong Dong and the AC in the taxi helped bring us to life. By the time we arrived, we were ready for our tour!
The smell of the fish sauce over takes you as soon as you open the taxi door.
To my surprise you actually acclimate to the smell very quickly and it becomes less pungent the closer you get to the actual fish sauce.
Founded in 2006, Red Boat came to being because Chuong Pham missed the flavors of his childhood in Saigon. He came to Phu Quoc with the mission of making the cleanest and most flavorful fish sauce possible and was able to help expand a small, family-owned factory into what is now Red Boat. He saw the need to raise standards, as most fish sauce produced in Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s producer of fish sauce, has impurities from other fish/marine species, bugs, dust from the air, etc. Not only this but most are pumped with fake colorings and preservatives. Not Red Boat. Only two ingredients: anchovies and salt.
Red Boat uses a centuries-old process to make the fish sauce.
First, they use 8 boats — 5 small ones with big lights on them that can spread light for up to 1-2km which is used to attract the anchovies, 2 big fishing boats that hold the nets and salt and 1 big one specifically for salt. The fishermen fish at night and must get the fish into the salt within 30 minutes. Most other companies will put their fish on ice until they make the trip back into town (sometimes they are gone for a week or two) and the fish lose a lot of their minerals and nutrients. Just one of the many quality standards Red Boat has in place to make sure the customer is getting the best product possible. Even the salt that they use from Vung Tau, a beach-side town about 2 hours from Saigon, is filtered and free from impurities by the time it is mixed with the fresh anchovies.
Once the fish and salt make it back to the Red Boat facilities, the 12-month fermentation process begins inside these massive, orange, wooden vats. These vats are around 20-25 years old and can be used for up to 50 years. And good thing! It sounds like the process of making these vats is quite the undertaking. The wood used to make the body of the vat must be sealed from within using other wood. From there, rattan is harvested from the forest and up to 20 “strands” of rattan are then woven together to make a larger rope that than wraps around the wooden vat.
Here’s what goes on inside the vats:
The bottom of the vats are filled with bricks. This ensures that no fish sauce will be left behind once it is taken out with a spigot, which are located about 6 inches from the bottom of the vat. The bricks are then covered with 100kg of Vung Tau, purified salt, which is then filled to the top with the salted anchovies from the fishing boat. Once the vat is filled with the fish, workers put on tall boots and climb in to stomp/press the fish. Then they add another 100kg of Vung Tau salt, a net, lattice of bamboo and a tarp go on top. Our amazing guide, Cung, said that even the tarp is unique to Red Boat and another way they can guarantee the purist product on the market — most other factories leave their vats open which can lead to anything getting in. After 10 days, they will extract some of the fish sauce to test for salt content — 24-26% is optimum — and the salt will be adjusted as needed. Then the fish sauce sits and ferments for 12 months!
Each barrel will produce 2,500-3,000 liters of first-press, extra virgin fish sauce.
The photo at the top of this post is of me about to open the tarp and take a peak inside to see 3,000 liters of fermenting fish sauce! Before the fish sauce is ready for market, though, it has to go through a triple-filtration process — yet another step that separates Red Boat from its competitors. To do this, about 1/3 of the vat (1,000 liters) is removed and then poured back into the vat over the fish. This is done three times and the extra exposure to the fish helps extract extra nutrition and ensures the highest protein content possible (it needs to be between 39-43% to be deemed ready for export). Once this is done, the first-press fish sauce is ready! Red Boat currently exports to 6 or 7 countries but also sells their second and third press oils locally.
I should also mention that Red Boat produces Kosher fish sauce where extra precautions are taken to ensure that only anchovies (and not other small fish or shellfish which can sometimes make it into their other fish sauce) are fermented. Red Boat takes precautions to limit other types of fish/shellfish in all its fish sauce but sometimes little fish end up with the anchovies. Not for the Kosher. They make sure every last fish fits the Kosher standards.
In order to make the second and third press fish sauce, water and salt is added into the vat containing the already-fermented anchovies. In both processes, the mixture is left to sit for 3 months (versus the 12 months on the first press). The second press is usually sold to locals to use in dipping sauces and cooking whereas the third press is sold to locals specifically for cooking. Another thing that sets this company apart is that there is NO WASTE from the process of making their fish sauce. All the fermented fish are sold to farmers, some coming from as far away as the Mekong Delta, to use as fertilizer on farms!
Now for some fun facts! Sea divers will take a spoonful, yes a FULL spoonful, of fish sauce before starting 2-3 hours dives to keep them warm and for a boost of energy. Along the same lines, locals will add a spoonful of fish sauce to a young coconut full of coconut water to start their day as a way to hydrate and boost energy throughout the day. Red Boat also makes and sells dehydrated fish sauce, Fish Sauce Flakes, because a lot of airlines have banned fish sauce on their flights. The flakes make it much easier to travel and add just as much flavor to dishes when used like salt!
We are so grateful to Choung, Ms. Hong and our tour guide, Cung, for our unforgettable morning at Red Boat. We were even given a small bottle of 50% protein, chef-grade fish sauce (thankfully Viet Jet Air hasn’t banned fish sauce) and a small container of fish sauce flakes to bring home. Our tour today reaffirmed my choice to buy only Red Boat Fish Sauce and I’m so happy to have witnessed the production in action.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Any purchases made through these links will result in a small commission for me (at no extra cost for you), but all opinions are my own.
