On August 11, Phu Tho Provincial Police informed that the unit had inspected the production facility of MQ Food Company Limited (formerly Cuong Huong Company Limited).
Here, the police discovered 3 frozen warehouses containing 30 tons of buffalo meat, fresh pork and 1 ton of fresh labor market; along with a finished storage warehouse containing 3 tons of dried buffalo meat and 3.4 tons of packaged dried pork. At the time of inspection, the facility had not yet presented documents proving the origin of the above foods.
Notably, from 2020 to now, the owner of the facility has used more than 1,000 tons of frozen meat to produce about 400 tons of dried meat, with an estimated revenue of more than 100 billion VND.
Speaking with Lao Dong, Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh - Director of Bright Legal Law Firm assessed that this is a typical case of commercial fraud and consumer rights violations on a very large scale. Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh assessed that in this case, the responsibility of management agencies is extremely high, especially food safety management agencies, local authorities and market management agencies.
"For a large-scale facility to consume a huge amount of raw materials and revenue to operate (according to Phu Tho Provincial Police, from 2020 to now, the subject has used more than 1,000 tons of frozen meat to produce about 400 tons of dried meat, with an estimated revenue of more than 100 billion VND) without being detected, it shows that there may be loopholes in inspection and examination work" - Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh emphasized.
In addition, according to Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh, the current post- product inspection mechanism after quality declaration is not synchronous and does not meet the requirements of risk control in the market economy. Many products only need to go through the procedure of declaring standards and are allowed to circulate without going through the testing process of the management agency. In this case, many businesses and individuals take advantage of loopholes in the production of goods that do not meet standards.
At the same time, the technology system for tracing the origin of goods is still not synchronous, the bar code and QR code are deployed but mainly at a formal level, without a mechanism for inspection or comparison. This is the reason why many businesses like the above have the opportunity to design QR codes themselves, buy HACCP certificates to print on packaging even though they have not registered with competent authorities.
Finally, the current management and post-inspection mechanism after business registration is still loose, leading to many people taking advantage of legal entities, but there is no actual production and business activities, or also known as "ghost" enterprises to commit illegal acts. This requires the urgent need to regularly organize inspections and supervision of activities, as well as strictly handle businesses that do not comply with legal commitments.
The complicated developments in the production and trading of food of unknown origin and counterfeit brands in recent times show significant loopholes in market management and businesses' awareness of law compliance.
According to Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh, to tighten management to avoid similar incidents, it is necessary to strengthen a risk-based post-inspection system. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of the traceability technology system. Building a transparent, synchronous and highly controllable product traceability system is a key step to prevent counterfeiting of QR codes and HACCP certificates as in the above case.
In particular, it is necessary to perfect the tool to monitor the actual activities of enterprises through financial, tax and mandatory reports.
In the world, many countries have implemented strict measures to prevent and effectively handle "ghost" enterprises or enterprises that do not operate in practice but still take advantage of legal entities to violate the law. One of the effective solutions is to establish a continuous monitoring mechanism after business registration, not just stopping at the initial licensing stage.
"This incident has shown loopholes in controlling the origin, labels and food distribution processes, especially products with regional specialty labels. Authorities need to strengthen inspection and supervision more closely, while consumers also need to be vigilant, should not only believe in packaging or advertising labels but also carefully research the origin of products" - Lawyer Tran Tuan Anh emphasized.
