Vietnam Needs to Develop Supply Chain to Enhance Food Safety: Experts

While unsafe food was a growing threat in Vietnam, it was critical to develop a food supply chain to improve control quality from the farm to table, experts said at an online conference held in Hanoi on May 4. Food safety violations, which were posing serious threats to the health of the community as well as the country’s economic development, have never been as alarming, the experts said at the conference organized by Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep newspaper. Vu Vinh Phu, president of the Hanoi Supermarket Association, said that unsafe food must be addressed as a national problem. Unsafe food was being sold not only at traditional markets or vendors but also on shelves of even supermarkets while consumers were in the dark about the quality of food and foodstuff, and it was difficult to differentiate between what was safe and what was unsafe, he said, pointing fault in the quality control step. “It should go from production, processing and distribution. If no improvements are made, unsafe food will remain a threat in the next decade,” he said and estimated that 95% of food on the shelves was now unsafe. Le Duc Thinh, deputy director of the Department of Co-operatives and Rural Development under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s, said food safety would involve the participation of not only the government agencies but also farmers, companies and consumers. In addition, awareness of consumers must be enhanced and they should play their roles in the fight against unsafe food while penalties must be stricter to prevent deliberate violations, he said. Vu Doan Huy, deputy director of Food Vietnam Joint Stock Company, producers should cooperate with each other to produce safe food and foodstuff, such as founding an association in Australia, and implementing cross-checking of quality. The cooperation among food producers to build a brand and cross checking to ensure quality would be necessary, Le Van Giang, deputy director of the Ministry of Health’s Department of Food Safety, said at the conference. (Vietnam News May 5)