Determining that food safety is always a constant concern for the city of nearly 13 million people, the city’s interdisciplinary Steering Committee on Food Safety will strengthen inspections and surprise checks of collective kitchens, School canteens, export processing zones, industrial parks…
Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan – Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety.
In the new situation that is said to be full of domestic and international challenges and difficulties affecting food choices and attitudes of manufacturers and businesses, the Action Month for Food Safety will be implemented thoroughly. any? VOV Traffic reporter had an interview with Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan – Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety.
Reporter: Why choose April as Food Safety Action Month?
Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan: April is the month of changing seasons and intense heat; This is the stage of bacterial growth. We must be extremely vigilant, strengthen inspection and examination; propaganda to the people. For example, through some incidents in other localities to warn people, because if we let our guard down, it could also happen in Ho Chi Minh City.
This month’s inspection includes the inspection team of the Department of Food Safety (10 teams), as well as interdisciplinary inspection teams from localities in coordination with other departments. And we also prepare scenarios if poisoning occurs.
In recent times, the city’s food safety situation has been relatively peaceful, but it absolutely must not be forgotten for a moment. So the three key points of this month are surprise inspections and checks based on information from the market and localities.
The second is to focus on preventing and treating poisoning, not allowing food poisoning to occur. Third is propaganda to the people. It must be emphasized that no inspection force is enough to cover everything if people do not cooperate.
Snack locations around school gates pose many potential risks
If you have information about violations, please report to the Department of Food Safety’s hotline 028.39.301.714.
Reporter: During the hot season, the risk of food insecurity at street food vendors is very high. What management methods does the Department of Food Safety have?
Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan: If it is a restaurant or food service establishment, it must be granted adequate food hygiene and safety conditions to operate, but street vendors are not granted this license because of small retail sales and low capital levels.
For street vendors, the most difficult thing to control is unsanitary dishes and utensils. So for a long time, we have determined that street vending, or street food to be exact, has many potential risks. So usually related poisonings are small cases of poisoning and are usually caused by bacteria.
What have we done to manage? The entire city has 15,400 street food vendors, some distributed around schools, especially primary schools, targeting young students.
Management of street food is decentralized to wards, communes, districts; Each locality knows the number of street food vendors in their area.
It looks “mobile” like that, but it is still inspected and controlled through training sessions, increasing knowledge, equipping tools…. so that food safety risk factors are reduced.
Localities are also urgently building model food safety routes, or routes and streets without street food.
But the most important thing is to raise consumer awareness. Simply put, if it’s dirty, don’t come in and eat!
Loudspeakers promoting media slogans “Action Month for Food Safety 2024” run on main roads in the city. Ho Chi Minh
Reporter: You just mentioned food safety at schools. So during the month of action for food safety, how will Ho Chi Minh City strengthen inspection and examination of this issue?
Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan: We also increase propaganda to parents, don’t pamper your children too much, and give them money to buy junk food indiscriminately.
There may be cases of food poisoning that we have not yet discovered, but it must still be acknowledged that this is an always potential risk.
We strictly control the collective kitchen and canteen in the school, but outside the school gate it is more difficult to control, especially for “mobile” subjects like this. We are not against it, but we have to campaign to ask practitioners to do things cleaner in order to have customers.
The hot season is very dangerous, we do not encourage students to buy snacks. Here are not only candied fruits, fish sauce… but also potentially dangerous imported pre-packaged foods of unknown origin. If inspected, there will be penalties.
