At the beginning of 2025, in Hanoi, many violations in food production, processing and trading activities were discovered and clarified by the authorities. Typically, on January 3, 2025, the Economic Police Department of Hanoi City Police coordinated with Market Management Team No. 17, Hanoi Market Management Department to inspect a business establishment in Bai Thuy village, Dong Thap commune, Dan Phuong district, Hanoi city. During the inspection, the authorities discovered and seized 14 tons of food products (sausages of all kinds, dried beef, candy) of unknown origin, no invoices, no food safety inspection, posing a potential risk to the health of consumers. These are items often sold at school gates.
Or on January 7, 2025, the Economic Police Department, City Police coordinated with the Inspectorate of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to conduct a surprise inspection of the Minh Quy frozen food processing and trading facility, address: Lang Kim 1 Village, Kim Quan Commune, Thach That District, Hanoi City. Through the inspection, the authorities discovered that the facility had stored and traded expired goods; processed and traded goods of unknown origin; did not have a certificate of food safety eligibility for food processing and packaging activities; the production area had harmful insects...; seized 3.27 tons of goods (including: tripe, intestines, chicken feet, meat, buffalo and cow tails of all kinds...). The owner of the facility admitted to purchasing these goods floating on the market to resell to food service stores in the neighboring area. It is worth mentioning that many of the above goods had changed color and emitted an unpleasant odor.
The question is how many more cases, how many tons of goods and foods of unknown origin are floating around the market? What will be the consequences and harms of these toxic foods?
According to the latest report of the Ministry of Health, in 2024, the health sector inspected 354,820 establishments, detecting 22,073 establishments violating food safety (food safety, accounting for 6.22% of the number of establishments inspected. The number of establishments fined increased 2.9 times compared to 2023, the amount of fines increased 1.69 times. The police force prosecuted 62 cases (an increase of nearly 88%) with 97 defendants (an increase of more than 185%).
Acknowledging the efforts of the authorities, it must be admitted that the number of detected cases is still low compared to reality. The reason for many violations is that the current sanctions are not strong enough, and do not have the deterrent effect on individuals and organizations that are greedy for profit and trade in and produce dirty food or food of unknown origin.
Therefore, the Ministry of Health believes that, in addition to propaganda to change people's awareness, it is necessary to increase the penalty level to increase deterrence.
There must be heavy penalties, even increased criminalization of food safety violations. For the sake of people's health, no matter how high the penalty increase is, it will certainly receive consensus.
