Health officials to step up food safety checks for Tet

Shoppers at a supermarket in Hanoi. Health officials will conduct surprise checks in nine cities and provinces in a bid to ensure food safety during the coming Tet holiday. Central and local agencies Monday began inspecting food hygiene and safety conditions as the Tet (Lunar New Year) season approaches and demand for food and foodstuffs begins to rise.

The Ministry of Health has set up three teams to inspect food safety conditions next month in nine cities and provinces, Nguyen Thanh Phong, deputy head of the ministry’s Food Safety and Hygiene Bureau, has announced. The localities subject to unannounced inspections are Hanoi and the provinces of Lang Son and Bac Ninh in the north; and in the south, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho City and the provinces of Binh Duong, Tay Ninh, Soc Trang and Ca Mau. Inspectors will check the production, processing and selling of food products in these areas, as well as services at local restaurants. “Food demand always surges at the year end, usually by several dozens times compared to ordinary days, thus food safety during this time of the year is always a big concern,” Phong said. He said around 80 percent of more than 497,000 food producers and processors nationwide are small scale enterprises and some household businesses fail to equip themselves with high-quality facilities to meet food safety standards. The Health Ministry has also asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for instructions on detecting banned substances in food items, Phong added. In Hanoi, six food safety inspection teams have been formed, according to Hanoi Health Department Director Le Anh Tuan. The teams will work on many products including drinks, sausages, fermented pork rolls, cookies and jam, nuts and seeds rich in oil, and additives, Tuan said. Meanwhile, Chief Inspector of HCMC Health Department Nguyen Minh Hung said an inspection team of 55 members is ready for the Tet food season. The officials, including those from the department, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Veterinary Bureau, the Market Management Bureau and the Public Health Hygiene Institute, will start working tomorrow, Hung said. Inspections by several district officials Monday have shown that producers and sellers this year “have done a better job” in ensuring food safety conditions, he noted. “We’ll pay utmost attention to the products’ origins and will strictly penalize any violator,” Hung promised. Health officials expressed special concern about fake alcohol products after a recent inspection by the Health Ministry in six northern provinces found 17 out of 53 alcohol samples had more than the permitted levels of methanol, furfurol and aldehyde. Tran Quang Trung, the ministry’s chief inspector, said many localities were not well staffed and equipped for testing poisonous chemicals in alcohol products. Doctors from the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital said the risk of being poisoned would be higher during the Tet holiday, when people tend to drink more. Do Kim Son said that in recent years, the hospital has received people with alcohol poisoning during Tet festival, some cases rather critical, when the victims already had diabetes or heart-related diseases. Nguyen Cong Khan, head of the Food Safety and Hygiene Bureau, has ordered more careful inspections of alcohol products. According to Trung, many alcohol products, mostly homemade, are being sold with fake labels or with no labels at all. Reported by Thanh Nien staff