What does the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade say about the fake milk case?
The fake milk production ring has just been dismantled by the Ministry of Public Security on a large scale, with a revenue of nearly 500 billion VND, occurring at Rance Pharma International Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company and Hacofood Group Nutrition Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company. This ring produces, trades, and consumes fake milk in large quantities in Hanoi and many provinces and cities across the country.
This incident has made consumers worried because the quantity of nearly 600 types of fake powdered milk consumed over the past 4 years is extremely large. These include many types of milk for people with diabetes, kidney failure, premature babies, menopause and pregnant women. Therefore, public opinion believes that it is necessary to clarify the responsibility of authorities when granting licenses for fake milk to circulate on the market.
On April 18, the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade said that according to the provisions of Decree No. 15/2018 dated February 2, 2018 of the Government, the responsibility for State management of dairy products is clearly defined according to each product group and specialized agency.
In particular, the Ministry of Health is responsible for managing the group of dairy products with additional micronutrients and functional foods - including receiving self-declaration, confirming product registration, confirming food advertising content.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is in charge of the group of commonly processed milk products (excluding micronutrient or functional milk).
For milk products produced by Rance Pharma International Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company and Hacofood Group Nutrition Joint Stock Company, the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade did not accept product declaration documents; The Inspectorate of the Department and the Hanoi City Market Management force have not yet inspected and handled violations against these two companies from 2021 to present because they are not under the scope of specialized management.
The Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade stated that according to current regulations, the health sector is the competent unit for specialized inspection, periodic inspection and post-inspection of food production and supply activities of the two above-mentioned enterprises. The Market Management Force is only inspected when detecting signs of violations within the assigned functions and tasks.
The registration of the establishment and operation of enterprises is under the authority of the Department of Planning and Investment (now the Department of Finance) according to the provisions of the Law on Enterprises.
Strengthening supervision and handling of violations
The Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade said that in recent years, ensuring food safety (FS) has always been one of the key tasks of the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade.
From 2021 to present, the Department of Industry and Trade has inspected and conducted specialized post-inspections on 289 enterprises, administratively sanctioned 47 units with a total amount of nearly 400 million VND. The Hanoi Market Management Force alone has handled 2,256 violations related to food safety, imposed administrative fines of more than 31.6 billion VND, and forced the destruction of nearly 56.7 billion VND in violating goods.
For dairy products, 53 violations were inspected and fined, collecting a fine of VND 546 million; confiscating and destroying 5,853 dairy product units worth more than VND 200 million. In 2024, 2 serious cases were detected and transferred to the investigation agency:
In particular, the Hanoi Market Management force coordinated with Gia Lam District Police and the Department of Environmental Police to temporarily detain 3,000 cans of unlabeled, unknown origin, some models with nutritional components only reached less than 70% of the announcement.
Hanoi Market Management also inspected a business in Dong Anh district, discovering more than 123,600 units of milk-related products with signs of erasing, changing the expiration date, quality below 70% of the published standards. Both cases have been transferred to the investigation agency for handling according to the law.
Regarding the case of fake milk, the Hanoi City Food Safety and Hygiene Department on April 17 announced the results of reviewing the product declaration records of two enterprises: Rance Pharma International Pharma Joint Stock Company and Hacofood Group Nutrition Pharma Joint Stock Company.
Accordingly, only 71 out of nearly 600 fake milk powder labels discovered were products that were ever published in Hanoi, accounting for about 12%.
The Hanoi City Food Safety and Hygiene Department said that from 2021 to present, the Department has issued certificates of receipt of food declaration registration and received food self-declaration documents for 67 products of Rance Pharma and 4 products of Hacofood Group. Most of these are nutritional food products.
Notably, none of the 71 products in the published records have users who are people with diabetes, kidney failure, premature birth, underage or pregnant women - the groups of subjects that labels have listed on the packaging. Nearly 90% of the remaining products are published in other provinces and cities.
