“In the days leading up to Tet, households in Nam O are gathering packaging materials and labels, so that as soon as they receive a customer order, they can fulfill it immediately. The seafood products in demand for Tet include dried fish, fish sauce, shrimp paste, split hairtail, and seaweed. When Tet comes, tonnes of fish sauce products are sold nationwide,” said Tran Thi Minh Thai, a fish sauce producer in Nam O. 

For the past month, Thai’s family has been busy producing fish sauce for Tet sales. At every year’s end, Nam O village bustles with commercial activity.

The village was founded hundreds of years ago and its fish sauce, a unique traditional craft product, embodies the community’s identity and cultural diversity, and the creativity of many generations of locals.

Nam O fish sauce, with its dark reddish brown color and salty flavor of the sea, used to be a specialty for the King. It has long been the indispensable dipping sauce of daily meals for the people of Da Nang.

Ly Hoang Tram of Dak Lak province, who works in Da Nang city, says that every year, before returning home for Tet, she comes to Nam O village to buy fish sauce and dried seafood as Tet gifts for relatives.

“I like the taste of Nam O fish sauce. Every year when I return home for Tet, I buy dozens of liters as gifts for my relatives,” Tram told VOV.

Nam O has 260 households with 300 people engaged in making fish sauce. 70 households belong to the Nam O Traditional Fish Sauce Village Association. Last year, the village produced 300,000 liters, which earned them nearly 1 million USD.

Tran Ngoc Vinh, the Association’s Chairman, said the number of households involved in fish sauce making is growing rapidly, from 20 in 2005 to a few hundreds now.

Nam O receives groups of tourists who come to see the fish sauce making process in person.

“We demonstrate the production of Nam O fish sauce and dried fish and fish paste to attract tourists. We need to maintain a fishing fleet to serve local fish sauce production,” Vinh said, adding, “To improve our living standard, we need to protect the environment. Locals need to be trained as tour guides to introduce Nam O village and its traditional craft.”

The local government is applying for recognition of Nam O as a traditional craft village and plans to invest in infrastructure and specialized areas for displaying products and demonstrating the production process.

Tran Cong Nguyen, Chairman of the Lien Chieu district People's Committee, says that will help preserve and promote the village, and increase locals’ incomes.

“We’re implementing a project to combine product development and community tourism. We help household businesses maximize the advantage of having been granted intellectual property rights,” said Nguyen.

Nam O fish sauce was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage in June 2019.

Five years later, in 2024, it was granted the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam’s certificate of protection for geographical indication. This is Da Nang city’s first geographical indication and Vietnam’s third geographical indication for fish sauce products, after Phu Quoc and Phan Thiet.