Guides / For Processors

What foreign buyers ask before they will quote your plant, and how to answer

September 26, 2026

Most enquiries that reach a Vietnamese shrimp plant die in the first exchange. Not on price, and usually not on capability. They die because the buyer asked a specific question and got a general answer, and a buyer comparing several plants reads a general answer as a no.

This guide is for processors. It sets out what a US, EU or Japanese importer is actually checking in the first two emails, and what a reply looks like that keeps you in the comparison.

What the buyer is deciding in the first exchange

A serious importer is not yet deciding whether to buy from you. They are deciding whether to spend more time on you. The filter is narrow and mechanical:

1. Can this plant run my species, grade and processing form?
2. Does it hold the certificates my own customer requires, with numbers I can verify?
3. Can it handle my volume at my cadence without displacing me behind a bigger account?
4. Is it legally able to ship to my market?
5. Does it answer questions directly?

Four of those five are facts you either have or do not. The fifth is entirely within your control and it is where most plants lose.

The profile a buyer needs, in the form they need it

Have this ready as a one page document, in English, updated quarterly. Not a brochure with photographs of the sea.

Plant identity. Company name, plant address and province, the legal entity that will sign, and the year the plant started exporting.

Approvals and numbers. HACCP, the EU establishment number if you hold one, FDA registration number if you hold one, and any scheme certificates with the certificate number, the issuing body and the expiry date. Numbers, not photographs of plaques. A buyer will check them in the issuing body’s public database, and a number that checks out does more for you in thirty seconds than any amount of company narrative.

Species and grades actually run. Not the theoretical range of the equipment. The grades you have produced in the last twelve months, written the way the buyer writes them: vannamei U/15 through 41/50, black tiger 16/20 through 31/40.

Processing forms and pack formats. HOSO, HLSO, PD, PUD, PDTO, EZ-peel, cooked, breaded. IQF, semi-IQF, block. Net weights per inner and per master that your lines are already set up for.

Capacity. Monthly finished tonnes, and separately your cold store capacity. Say what is committed and what is available, because a buyer who discovers after the sample that there is no line for them will not come back.

Markets already served. Which markets you currently ship to. Not customer names, which you should not disclose, but destinations, which cost you nothing and answer the legality question immediately.

Testing. Whether residue and microbiological testing is per lot or per batch, and which laboratory. Japanese buyers in particular will make this the second question.

How to answer the five questions well

Grades and forms

Answer in the buyer’s units. If the enquiry says 21/25 HLSO IQF, the first line of your reply confirms or declines exactly that, and only then describes anything adjacent.

Bad: “We are a leading processor with modern equipment and full capability across all shrimp products.”

Good: “Yes. We run vannamei 21/25 HLSO IQF regularly, currently about 80 tonnes a month of that grade. We can also offer 16/20 and 26/30 in the same form if your programme allows a grade either side.”

The second version answers the question and offers the flexibility that actually helps a buyer, which is grade substitution when the market moves.

Certificates

Give the number, the body and the expiry. If you do not hold something, say so plainly and say whether it is in progress with a date. Buyers do not need every certificate. They need to know which of their requirements you meet, and a plant that is honest about a gap is easier to work with than one that is vague about it.

If a certificate is in scope for only part of your operation, say which part. A scheme certificate that covers one line and not another causes a rejection later if nobody flagged it now.

Volume and cadence

State what you can commit and be conservative. A buyer who is promised two containers a month and gets one has a problem with their own customer, and that is the failure mode that ends relationships permanently. Under-promising and over-delivering is the only version of this that builds a repeat account.

Market legality

The EU establishment number and FDA registration are binary. Either you can ship there or you cannot. Answer in one line and do not bury it.

Answering directly

Reply within one business day. Answer the questions in the order they were asked. Attach the profile. Do not open with company history.

Ready to price this spec? Get matched with a shrimp supplier

What to do about price before the spec is complete

Buyers often ask for an indication before the spec is settled, and plants react in one of two unhelpful ways: refuse until everything is confirmed, or send a bare number.

The useful reply is a band with its assumptions stated:

“For vannamei 21/25 HLSO IQF, 10 percent glaze, 1.8 kg net per inner, HACCP and BAP, FOB Ho Chi Minh, current indication is X to Y USD per kg net. This assumes current raw material and is valid for two weeks. A firm price needs your net weight, glaze and certificate requirements confirmed.”

That reply is comparable, honest about its own limits, and makes clear what you need next. It also signals that you price on net weight and glaze basis, which experienced buyers read as a good sign.

Five things that cost plants orders

• Quoting on gross weight when the buyer asked for net. It reads as either careless or deliberate, and neither helps. State the glaze percentage and the weight basis in every quote.
• Photographs of certificates instead of numbers. Unverifiable, and the buyer will assume the worst.
• Promising grades the plant has not run in a year. The sample exposes it and you have spent the buyer’s three weeks.
• Silence during production. A buyer who hears nothing for a month assumes the worst. A two line update at raw material purchase and at packing costs nothing.
• Resisting pre-shipment inspection. On a first order the buyer needs it and will pay for it. Refusing is read as a confession.

What a matched request looks like from your side

When a request comes to you through a matching service rather than direct, the same preparation applies but the sequence is shorter. You see the spec first, without the buyer’s identity: species, grade, form, pack, volume, destination market and required certificates. You decide from that whether your plant is a genuine fit, and only then do you get the contact details and quote directly.

That shape rewards an accurate profile more than an impressive one. A plant that has told us it runs 21/25 HLSO at 80 tonnes a month gets requests it can win. A plant that claims everything gets requests it will lose, which wastes its own money.

If you run shrimp in Vietnam and export already, register your plant with the grades and certificate numbers you actually hold. Buyers on the other side are asking the questions above, and the plants with the answers ready are the ones that get quoted.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

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• Shrimp anti-dumping review: the records a Vietnam exporter needs when Commerce sends a questionnaire