The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training (GDĐT) has just issued a document on the review being implemented to promptly protect the health and rights of students, in the context that recently there has been a lot of information reflecting from parents, the press and media channels about the risk of food insecurity in schools.
Accordingly, the Department requests educational institutions that have reflections related to school meals to immediately suspend the use of services of industrial meal suppliers or ready-to-eat meals that are being reflected.
Schools must urgently inspect, review, and verify the reflected content and are only allowed to continue using the service after having an official conclusion from a competent authority. At the same time, units must urgently report to the Department and People's Committees of wards, communes, and special zones; provide complete dossiers and documents as required by functional agencies.
During the suspension period, schools need to proactively develop plans to organize and manage appropriate semi-boarding meals, ensuring absolute safety for students.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training also requests all educational institutions that are organizing school meals to seriously review and comprehensively report on the organization and provision of semi-boarding meals.
In which, schools must strengthen self-inspection and supervision of school meals in a periodic, regular and unscheduled manner; closely monitor meal providers to promptly detect signs of food safety failure.
The review should not only stop at legal documents but also focus on actual supervision of the process of supply, transportation, delivery and quality of meals. Schools must fully and truthfully report information about the meal provider such as unit name, tax code, address, form of supply, number of meals per day, delivery time, type of semi-boarding meal organization...
According to the request of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, educational institutions must complete online reports no later than 5:00 PM on February 2, 2026. In case of arising food safety risks or incidents beyond their authority to handle, schools must immediately report to the Department of Education and Training to coordinate with the Department of Food Safety and functional agencies to inspect and handle them promptly.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training emphasized that tightening the management of school meals is a mandatory requirement to ensure a safe and healthy learning environment and the legitimate rights of students in the city.
Previously, on January 28, An Phuoc Thang SG Trading Co., Ltd. (Sago Food) in Hiep Phuoc commune (formerly Nha Be district area) - a unit providing meals and food for many schools in Ho Chi Minh City, was reflected on using expired meat in processing. This information has caused much concern in public opinion.
After this information, many schools using Sago Food company meals have announced a temporary suspension of cooperation, awaiting conclusions from functional agencies, and at the same time stopped organizing semi-boarding meals at schools.
