Wobbling ATOP A RICKETY LADDER, NGUYEN VAN BANG TAKES A deep appreciative breath of the pungent smell, then plunges his hand into a vat of rotting fish and salt. "You see, this one is only about a week old, the fish still have their eyes and tails," he says, turning over the already soupy mixture. "But they'll all decompose soon enough, don't worry."
A dapper 72 year old, Bang is the undisputed master taster on Phu Quoc island of nuoc mam, the fermented fish sauce essential to Vietnamese cuisine. Descending from the ladder, he springs over to another wooden vat and taps a valve, filling a glass with a warm amber liquid - the distilled juices of the now thoroughly decomposed anchovies, fermented for about a year. He squints and swirls it around like a fine brandy, then takes a sniff and pronounces it good.
"Everyone knows that on Phu Quoc, we produce the best nuoc mam," he says, with a satisfied sigh.
Everyone knows, especially the counterfeiters who label imitation sauces as Nuoc Mam Phu Quoc. The tiny island off the southern coast is known throughout Vietnam for producing the champagne of fermented fish sauce - and now, for more than one reason. In June, the island's nuoc mam producers were granted "appellation originaire" status.
Like the famed sparkling wine producers of France's Champagne region, islanders have won the right to ban use of the Phu Quoc name for sauce not actually made on its shores.
The fight over fish sauce highlights Vietnam's rampant culture of trademark piracy. "In Vietnam, we have a counterfeit-based economy," says Nguyen Tran Bat, chairman of InvestConsult, a business that helps international companies track down counterfeiters.
He clams that smuggling counterfeit goods is the country's largest growth industry and that 70-80% of consumer goods are counterfeit. No one in Vietnam - neither from bureaucracy officials, nor the business world - is willing to put a dollar figure on the counterfeit goods business, saying that enforcement is so lax that it's impossible even to hazard a guess.
While most assume that trademark ripoffs hurt only giant multinationals like Nike and Gucci, Phu Quoc shows that smaller local companies get hurt, too. Phu Quoc producers claim their island's entire economy could depend on protecting their name. Almost anywhere you go outside the island's main town, the acrid smell of rotting fish hangs in the air. Nearly half of Phu Quoc's economy is dependent on the nuoc mam industry, Bang says.
Most islanders either work in the island's 79 family-owned factories or ply the seas for fish. Families pass their secrets down from generation to generation, and note with pride that they use only freshly caught ca com, or anchovies, and don't add other fish or dried remains. Protein levels are strictly monitored, from 20% to the highest-quality 40%. Unlike, they sniff, mainland imitators.
The islanders had long suspected there was something, well, fishy going on with their brand name when they first noticed imitations appearing on shelves in Ho Chi Minh City.
Just how bad it was didn't hit home for Nguyen Thi Tinh, president of the fish sauce producers' association, until last year on a business trip to France. Browsing in a supermarket, she picked up a bottle of imported Vietnamese fish sauce - and nearly dropped it. "The label said Phu Quoc, but when I looked closer, it had 'made in Thailand' on it," recalls Tinh. "I was horrified."
Rather than resign themselves, the islanders decided to take action. The producers' association filed a complaint with the government soon after Tinh's supermarket shock, and Vietnam's Industrial Property Rights Department secured the Appellation Originaire decree in June. While that makes the fish sauce makers happy, enforcing the order is another thing.
"Intellectual property rights is still a new concept in Vietnam and enforcement is difficult," admits Tran Viet Hung, deputy chief of the property rights department. "Phu Quoc was one of the first Vietnamese companies to make this kind of complaint, but I don't think it will be the last."
The next step, he says, will be tracking down the fake Phu Quoc sauce makers and forcing them to change their labels. It's a huge job, and the office is understaffed. But for now, Phu Quoc islanders can at least enjoy one victory in the fight for their name. And to know that anything other than Nuoc Mam Phu Quoc is just plain fish sauce.