Off Co To in Quang Ninh province in northern Vietnam, there is an entrepreneur who has spent more than ten years on farming live squid: Nguyen Ba Ngoc, chairman of Mực nhảy Biển Đông ('Leaping Squid of the East Sea'). On August 10, 2026, in an interview with a Vietnamese agriculture-and-environment paper, what he spoke of was not a success story but a warning—'do not think squid farming is an easy way to make money.' As more people enter after watching only the harvest videos circulating on social media, his remarks, which thrust forward the on-the-ground figure of a survival rate of roughly 30%, leave something to read for Japanese seafood buyers weighing sourcing from Vietnam as well.
A 30% survival rate, live squid at 420,000 dong/kg—the figures ten years off Co To have lined up
What Mr. Ngoc repeats is a single point: 'being able to raise live squid and making it economically viable are entirely different matters.' In his records, the survival rate from releasing juvenile squid to shipment stays at roughly 30%. His conclusion after ten years is that profit and loss only come into view once you assume the remaining 70% do not grow out and stack up feed costs, labor and equipment depreciation on top.
Lining up the figures sharpens the outline. First-grade live squid trades at around 420,000 dong per kg depending on the season. Converting 10,000 dong at about 60 yen, that is roughly 2,500 yen/kg. When conditions align, profit can run 70–100 million dong per tonne (about 420,000–600,000 yen), but if any one of water temperature, salinity, oxygen or stocking density breaks down, that margin vanishes easily. Mr. Ngoc himself discloses that over these ten years he has lost on the order of billions of dong (tỷ đồng, in the tens of millions of yen).
| Item | Values from the primary source | Yen conversion (10,000 dong approximately 60 yen) |
|---|---|---|
| Years of farming research and trials | More than 10 years | — |
| Survival rate from release to harvest | About 30% | — |
| Price of first-grade live squid | About 420,000 dong/kg | About 2,500 yen/kg |
| Profit (when conditions align) | 70–100 million dong/tonne | About 420,000–600,000 yen/tonne |
| Stocking-density guideline | 6 per m³ | — |
| Shipping size (5–6 months) | 0.5–1.2 kg each | — |
From a 180 m² test plot to one of the world's largest HDPE cages
Mr. Ngoc was born in 1989 and comes from Ha Tinh province. In 2019 he set up a company in Ninh Thuan province, at first buying live squid from fishermen and wholesaling it to restaurants and fresh-fish shops. His first technical investment was a self-built, water-flowing box that kept squid alive in transit.
In 2021 he began trials of artificial breeding on a 180 m² plot in Vinh Hy Bay. He assembled the process step by step—acclimating captured parent squid in cages, having them spawn, hatching the collected eggs and returning the juvenile squid to the sea. The hatch rate is about 50%. In early 2024 he launched a giant HDPE cage of about 3,000 m² with an investment of 6 billion dong (about 36 million yen), touted as the largest in Vietnam and among the largest in the world. Rearing targets 6 squid per m³, growing them to 0.5–1.2 kg in 5–6 months; for the first three months they are fed live bait such as small fish and shrimp. And he is now shifting his footing toward the offshore intensive-farming zone off Co To (about 209.8 ha).
Can farmed squid reach a Japanese market where Japanese flying squid has plummeted?
Layering Japan's own circumstances onto this reveals a trough of supply and demand. Japan's Japanese flying squid has seen record-poor catches, and reports say landings have fallen more than 80% compared with ten years ago. Some note that squid once priced at 283 yen per kg has topped 1,000 yen. The price of sashimi-grade squid has risen, and reliance on imports is deepening. Seafood exports from Vietnam the value chains of shrimp and pangasius are the main players, but the picture is one in which squid is growing as a new item alongside them.
Among the squid Mr. Ngoc managed to breed is bigfin reef squid (Vietnamese name mực lá, a type of oval squid), which commands high prices as a Japanese sushi topping. At a local price of 2,500 yen/kg for live squid, there remains, in theory, room to break into Japan's premium tier on the strength of freshness and ike-jime live-killing. But it cannot be stated for certain. Exporting live and live-killed squid is tough on transport cost and yield, and the walls of Japan's hygiene standards and fresh-food distribution are high. While the survival rate swings around 30%, it is far from a stage of assembling volume and supplying steadily year-round. The possibility truly lies behind the local price, but the conditions to be cleared are likewise shown by the local figures. Shrimp farming in the Mekong Delta Considering the path by which they grew into export industries over decades, northern offshore squid farming is still only standing at the entrance.
'Look at the on-the-ground figures, not the videos'—the questions to answer before entering
What Mr. Ngoc recommends to would-be investors is not success videos but the field itself. 'Go to the site, look at the data, ask about survival rates, and calculate the costs in full.' Where to obtain seed stock, the quality of juvenile squid, water quality, how far you can control temperature, salinity and oxygen, feed, and the sales outlet—if you assemble only the equipment first without holding answers to these, it is a warning that the live squid may grow but the business will not.
For Japanese buyers, the point to read is in the same place. If you are considering sourcing farmed squid, check one by one the recent survival rate, the origin of the seed stock and the yield of ike-jime—not the brand's story or the largest cage. Vietnamese seafood how Japanese companies have taken it in As in those cases, success or failure is decided by the accuracy with which you verify on-the-ground figures. What Co To's ten years accumulated was both the possibility of a new supply source in farmed squid and the harshness of the figures that underpin it.
Sources
- Nông nghiệp & Môi trường「Nuôi mực, đừng nghĩ ‘ngon ăn’」（2026-08-10）: https://nongnghiepmoitruong.vn/nuoi-muc-dung-nghi-ngon-an-d825360.html
- Thanh Niên「Chàng trai nuôi ‘mực nhảy’ lợi nhuận hàng trăm triệu đồng/vụ」: https://thanhnien.vn/chang-trai-nuoi-muc-nhay-loi-nhuan-hang-tram-trieu-dong-vu-185230821200125061.htm
- vietnam.vn「Dự án Mực nhảy Cô Tô」: https://www.vietnam.vn/du-an-muc-nhay-co-to-mo-hinh-moi-nuoi-bien-cong-nghiep-hien-dai-ngoai-khoi
- Nikkei Asia「Squid-flation bites Japan as catch sinks to new low」: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Commodities/Squid-flation-bites-Japan-as-catch-sinks-to-new-low
