Strengthening food safety inspection and control

Over the years, the control of food products circulating in the market has always been implemented by the functional forces in the province with many solutions. Thereby, contributing to gradually pushing back fake food, poor quality food, ensuring the rights and health of consumers.

Authorities check food safety at a store in Nam Dinh city.

In May 2024, Market Management Team No. 1 (Provincial Market Management Department) coordinated with the Economic Police Team, Nam Dinh City Police to inspect the trading activities of goods at Hong Hue store, address 321 Hoang Van Thu Street, Nam Dinh City. Through the inspection, the authorities discovered that the store was trading in a number of items: alcohol, soft drinks, nutritional supplements, cakes, milk... with signs of violations. In particular, the store sold alcohol products, produced abroad, with labels in foreign languages, but without secondary labels in Vietnamese as prescribed; no wine stamps as prescribed; other goods such as cakes, milk, soft drinks... had signs of violating the trading of goods of unknown origin, trading in smuggled goods. The inspection team temporarily seized 418 products of various types. In early July 2024, Market Management Team No. 1 continued to coordinate with the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Product Quality Management (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development), the Economic Police Team of the City Police and the Team for Combating Smuggling, Trade Fraud and Counterfeit Goods of the Provincial Police to inspect and discover many products with signs of violations being sold at Ngoc Huong Food Store, No. 513 Tran Hung Dao (Nam Dinh City). During the inspection, the authorities discovered 15 types of goods, including 14 bottles of French fruit juice; over 22kg of various fruits; 8 bottles of wine; 14 bottles of Japanese milk tea; 12 boxes of milk tea; 44 packages of cakes; 24 packages of stem cell masks. At the time of inspection, the store owner could not present documents proving the origin of the above goods. The authorities have temporarily detained all of the above goods and completed the dossier, continuing to handle them according to the provisions of law. Previously, on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival 2023, Market Management Team No. 1 strengthened the management of the area, collected information, and detected violations of the law by establishments producing and trading goods for the Mid-Autumn Festival, especially violations of food hygiene and safety. After a period of deployment, the Team discovered and inspected 2 business households in Nam Dinh city that were selling 200 moon cake products with packaging that did not contain information showing the origin of the goods. The business owners admitted to buying the above quantity of goods floating on the market to sell for profit, and could not present invoices, vouchers and papers related to the goods. Market Management Team No. 1 has drawn up a record of administrative violations and issued a decision to impose administrative sanctions on the above two business households for the administrative violation of "Trading in goods of unknown origin".

In recent years, local consumers have increasingly tended to pay attention to clean, safe food that ensures family health. Grasping that trend, clean food stores, stores distributing OCOP products, and local specialties have appeared more and more. However, according to authorities, besides reputable establishments that sell guaranteed goods, there are still establishments that, for profit, do not keep their reputation, sell products that do not guarantee quality, are not as introduced, advertised to customers, advertise one thing, sell products in another way, causing consumers to lose confidence and feel indignant. In addition, the situation of buying, selling, and slaughtering animals without permission, sick animals, dead animals; transporting and consuming animals and animal products of unknown origin still occurs. There is still the use of chemicals, food additives, and food processing aids of unknown origin, not on the list of permitted substances for preliminary processing and food preparation... If not detected and prevented in time by the authorities, this "dirty" food will be smuggled into the market, and consumers will be directly affected.

In order to protect the rights of consumers, in recent years, functional agencies in the province have continuously promoted activities to strengthen the management of goods quality, especially goods related to food safety and hygiene, to meet the requirements of safety for consumers' health. Food production and trading have fully implemented safety measures; the number of violations of chemical and microbiological contamination has decreased compared to before. According to the report of the Provincial Market Management Department, through inspections of the food safety sector from the beginning of 2024 to present, the Provincial Market Management Department has inspected 144 times, handled 57 cases, imposed administrative fines of more than 93 million VND, and the value of confiscated goods is nearly 70 million VND. The Provincial Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Product Quality Management has also coordinated with the Interdisciplinary Steering Committee for Food Safety and Hygiene of the districts to inspect 5 food production and trading establishments; Established 8 periodic assessment and appraisal teams to classify food safety conditions at 55 establishments producing and trading agricultural, forestry and aquatic products. The provincial specialized agency has issued 38 certificates of establishments meeting food safety conditions for agricultural, forestry and aquatic product production and trading establishments; coordinated with communes, wards and towns to review, compile statistics and make a list of establishments processing, processing and trading agricultural, forestry and aquatic products, and stores selling safe products in the province. For clean food stores, the competent agency organized the collection of 26 food safety monitoring samples at 6 stores selling safe food in the area and conducted rapid tests to check compliance with regulations on product quality, hygiene and safety conditions.

To protect consumers, in the coming time, departments, branches, sectors and localities will continue to focus on disseminating the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws on food safety; disseminating knowledge and skills on proper food safety practices for managers, producers, processors, food traders and consumers in the province to limit food poisoning and infectious diseases; promptly detecting production and business establishments, suppliers and distributors of poor quality food. In addition to the efforts of the functional sector, people also raise awareness about fighting against counterfeit goods, smuggled goods, goods that do not ensure food hygiene and safety, do not buy food of unknown origin and do not ensure food hygiene and safety; create the habit of buying goods with full stamps and labels, checking the expiry date, buying goods with invoices and must be clearly aware of their duties in fighting against counterfeit goods, poor quality goods, goods of unknown origin; Actively denounce and condemn food safety violations to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and honest production and trading enterprises.

Article and photos: Hong Minh

Source: https://baonamdinh.vn/kinh-te/202409/tang-cuong-cong-tac-kiem-trakiem-soat-an-toan-thuc-pham-98c16d3/