Tracy Pham and her family run Red Boat Fish Sauce from Hayward, distributing their sauce to about 10,000 grocery stores nationwide, including Whole Foods and Safeway. But the sauce is made in Vietnam for a reason.
"An island on the southern part of Vietnam and the climate there is just super conducive to good fermentation, and the anchovies that we source are also in the Gulf of Thailand," Pham said.
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WATCH HEREEverything from the sauce to the bottle is made outside the county, and with the uncertainty surrounding tariffs Pham is left feeling uneasy.
"All of our fish sauce that’s been bottled, packaged, ready to go out to our customers, it’s all here," she said /
President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, which included Vietnam at 46%, left many with a bit of anxiety. Some of what Pham was feeling was eased on Wednesday with the president announcing a 90-day pause on tariffs for more than 75 trading partners.
However, the pause did not include China with tariffs on Chinese goods rising to 125%.
"The bottles we source from China, the caps we source from Japan and the label we get made in Vietnam," Pham said.
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The company could look at a manufacturer in Taiwan that could take over its glass bottles, but it could take time.
Pham added that the biggest challenge right now is the uncertainty of if the high tariffs on Chinese goods continues. If it does, it could affect Red Boat Fish Sauce product's price.
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SIGN UP "If you think about how many people are potentially searching for other glass manufacturers right now, they’re heavily impacted so the lead time we’re looking at is 7-9 months," Pham said. "Most of our distributors require 30-90 day notice before we can increase price so the 90 days does buy us some time and because we also have inventory here, we have a bit of a cushion.”
For now, Pham said she has to wait and see what happens.
"Economically I don't think as a business we could absorb all of those costs, some of that would have to get passed down to the consumer," Pham said.
