Recently I spent two weeks in Viet Nam creating a HACCP review from Farm to Plate.

The Farm is located in Sa Dec a small village in South Viet Nam. Market located in HCMC (Saigon) and a Restaurant in the same location.

The producer, wholesaler and retailer gave considerable attention to food safety. Although the awareness level has increased, poor water and refrigeration standards are far behind modern standards. This issue alone, in my opinion was the only restriction to meeting complete food safe requirements.

As I traveled into the Ming Gong Delta the quality of food safety control continued to decline. There is a gap in understanding clean and sanitary. Agriculture pollution is evident in many water systems, as the country has grown to become a major source of world rice production. 

While on the Gulf of Thailand near the Cambodian border, I observed a food operator rinsing soiled plates in contaminated water with no detergent or sanitizer and using a cloth to wipe clean. As a result, I was affected with Cyclo (Cyclospora) a nasty parasite that enjoys a life cycle of 7 to 9 weeks. Again, the observation was clean but not sanitary.    

Annually, the government takes food safety activities as published in the following United Nations report:

The United Nations is supporting the Viet Nam Month of Action for Food Safety and Hygiene 2010.

“Now is the time to improve food safety at home and for Viet Nam’s important food exports,” said Andrew Speedy, FAO Representative, speaking at a press conference in Hanoi today.

“Viet Nam has much to gain through improvements in its food safety systems and practice. Food-borne diseases are a leading cause of illness and death, and food exports make a significant economic contribution. The WTO trade agreements have opened up new opportunities to stimulate economic development through increased food and agricultural exports. Closing the gap between food safety policy and implementation is therefore critical.”

A new Food Safety Law will shortly be enacted and this will be the strong basis for improving national food safety.  The law is very comprehensive and provides for the rights and obligations of organizations and individuals relating to food safety and to achieve the conditions to assure food safety. As with any law, it must be effectively implemented in the field, market, factory and restaurant. In this regard, there is a major need for education and training, particularly of operators and inspectors at the local level throughout the country.

Although it is expected that, in 2010, there will be 200 inspectors specialized in food safety and hygiene throughout the country, the number of food safety inspectors will continue to remain insufficient. This is because that there are 63 cities/provinces, 689 districts and 11,000 communes in Vietnam. So if there is one food safety inspector in each commune, 5 in each district on average, there should be 12,000 to 15,000 food safety inspectors in Vietnam.

To begin to address this large capacity need, the UN has commenced a project funded by the One Plan Fund with the Viet Nam Food Administration of the Ministry of Health as the national implementing partner.

The project aims at improving the capacity of the food inspection system and developing a better trained and guided inspectorate force that has a clear understanding of the principles and practices of modern food inspection, with standardized technical guidelines to assist in the implementation of national inspection plans. It will begin to develop an effective tertiary food inspection educational component within the national university system that can provide a continuing workforce of specialized food inspectors that has the knowledge and skills necessary to fully inspect and check food safety and lead it into the future.

“Viet Nam needs a coordinated approach to food inspection that ensures consistency in inspection approaches and practice across responsible ministries and minimizes redundancies and overlap in the national food control system”, said Speedy.