Bustling food recovery
According to the Ministry of Health, from 2021 to now, the market has recorded more than 84,000 conventional food products and 54,549 functional food products. Of which, 80.4% is domestically produced goods from 201 establishments.
Management focuses on controlling the safety of microorganisms, heavy metals and preventing banned substances through pre-inspection and post-inspection. With the strong development of the market, especially on e-commerce platforms, tightening post-inspection and comprehensive control of food quality is an urgent requirement.
In just the past 2 months, the Food Safety Department (Ministry of Health) has issued a series of decisions to revoke the receipt of product declaration registration for violating health protection foods. This is a clear change after a long time when the authorities only handled the scattered waste in the style of "drip recovery".
On the information page of the Department of Food Safety, from the beginning of the year, 22 decisions to recover the receipt of the registration certificate of the announcement of health food products, recover the certificate of food safety conditions that meet the requirements of good production practice, certification of advertising content of health food products ... with 77 products of all kinds. In particular, the number of recalls is concentrated in April and 5.2025, which is the time when many fake foods, fake drugs are exposed and the national peak month against counterfeiting in the field of food and health.
Also on the Department's information page, in 2024, no revocation decisions were posted, in 2023, there were 2 decisions.
If previously, only a few revocation decisions were announced each month, even each year, from April until now, the number of documents handled has skyrocketed. Many products were discovered to violate advertising content, ingredients that were not as advertised, or did not ensure conditions for circulation. Some businesses have also been fined for not correcting violations after being reminded, showing a prolonged situation of lawlessness.
Loose food management
Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dang - Chairman of the Vietnam authorities' Food Association - was upset: The current painful situation in the food industry is false, deceitful, and fake advertisements; exaggerated advertisements, product exaggeration; ambiguous advertisements that cause misunderstanding; advertisements targeting sensitive subjects such as cancer patients.
Health protection foods are a group of goods with many risks if not strictly controlled. This is not a drug but is often advertised as a "pharmase", easily causing consumers to misunderstand and depend. This situation has been going on for many years, especially on social networking platforms and online sales sites. Meanwhile, the inspection and supervision force is still thin, not enough to control the entire market.
At a national online meeting on strengthening inspection of compliance with pharmaceutical laws in early May, Dr. Nguyen Hung Long - Deputy Director of the Department of Food Safety (Ministry of Health) - said that the situation of production and trading of fake health protection foods is complicated, with increasingly sophisticated tricks, mainly distributed through social networks and e-commerce platforms.
Many un published, fake brands, and fake origins products have been discovered through post-inspections, including a serious case of being transferred to the investigation agency. The main reasons are high profits and low costs, while regulations allowing businesses to self-declare products make management difficult. The inspection force is thin, the budget is limited, and the handling of violations is not enough to deter.
Dr. Tran Viet Nga - Director of the Department of Food Safety (Ministry of Health) - said that the management of fake food is difficult due to loose mechanisms, businesses are allowed to self-declare products without needing appraisal, leading to many cases of taking advantage of "circumventing the law" and announcing incorrect product nature.
Post-inspection is limited due to lack of human resources, funding and high testing costs. The Department is proposing to amend Decree 15 in the direction of tightening the self-declaration process and recommending increasing investment for post-inspections. She emphasized that synchronous coordination is needed between management agencies, businesses and consumers to ensure safe food.
