Many people attribute this to loopholes in management that allow manufacturers and suppliers to make self-declarations about products and to the lack of control after inspections.

According to the Food Safety Department under the Ministry of Health (MoH), food management is mostly decentralized to localities. Self-declaration is requested for most products, and only four categories of products require strict observation: the entities responsible for the products must register the declaration with state management agencies.

Under current regulations, products like medicinal nutritional foods, special diet foods, and nutritional products for children up to 36 months must submit self-declaration registration locally.

Registration dossiers must consist of food safety test results valid within 12 months of submission; scientific evidence proving the product’s or ingredient’s claimed benefits; and more.

Shocking statement: almost no nutrient tested

Ho Sy Y, 37, one of the defendants, a shareholder in Rance Pharma and Hacofood, managing a factory producing hundreds of fake milk, told the police: “We didn’t test nutrient content, leading to errors.”

Dang Trung Kien, 37, a shareholder and Deputy Director of Rance Pharma and Hacofood, admitted: “The local agency requested and guided us on testing during registration, but we only tested microbiological safety indicators. Nutrient testing was almost never done.”

Allowing enterprises to make self-declaration about products, according to MoH, creates an open mechanism for enterprises. After enterprises make declarations, post-inspection of production and trading of products is carried out by inter-sectoral agencies, either planned, periodic or unscheduled. 

However, after the production line of 573 fake milk products was exposed, it was shown that self-declaration and loose post-inspections have generated a legal loophole, allowing hundreds of types of fake milk to "freely" enter and exist in the market for many years.

Inspections

According to MOH, food quality management in the past only focused on controlling safety indicators (microbiological and heavy metal indicators) from pre-inspection to post-inspection and preventing hazards (testing to prevent the use of banned substances in food) at the post-inspection stage.

Post-checks must follow regulations, and must be carried out as planned annually, while management agencies cannot ‘inspect anytime they want’. Surprise inspections occur when signs of violations are revealed, when consumers complain about products, or when there are thematic inspections or sudden directions from authorities.

Checks cover self-declaration/registration dossiers, production, trading, imports, advertising, and product sampling for testing.

An official told VietNamNet that authorities test and quantify declared product components and safety metrics in accordance with legal or manufacturer standards.

“We only test metrics declared and shown on packaging, labels, and registration dossiers. Agencies mostly do not test ingredients that manufacturers do not declare, unless there are suspected toxic or prohibited substances related to the products,” he said. 

“Even surprise inspections must be planned,” he said. “There must be grounds and reasons to form an inspection team to take inspection tours.”

Regulations limit planned inspections to once per year per issue or facility to avoid overlapping checks, which may bother enterprises.

A leader from another local food safety agency noted that as inspections are scheduled and businesses informed in advance, this can affect the results. A facility or business that makes violations will find a way to hide its problems, and when the inspection team arrives, it will be difficult to grasp the actual situation.

According to the Food Safety Law, if agencies take samples and don’t find violations, they will have to pay for inspection fees. Vice versa, if violations are discovered, it is enterprises which have to pay the fees. Meanwhile, milk examination fees are very high.

Regular changes of manufacturing facilities also disrupt plans. In many cases, businesses were operational when they submitted declarations, but they were dissolved by the time inspectors came.

An official said with the current workforce, inspection agencies can only take random inspection tours and cannot examine 100 percent of enterprises and products.

“Fake milk is a burning issue these days, but it is impossible to post-inspect 100 percent of milk enterprises and products. What we can do is just intensifying examination,” he said.

Bui Thu Hang, Director of Hoa Binh Health Department, also admitted that it is very difficult to carry out post-checks. Localities need to improve their administrative procedure handling capability, detect unusual signs (for example when many declaration documents are submitted) and report the signs for inspection strengthening.

Vo Thu