At a meeting to review food safety for sidewalk eateries in 2015, the Department of Food Administration in Ho Chi Minh City said that as per its initial statistics, around 7 percent of 20,000 street restaurants fail to comply with food safety, hygiene regulation.
Of 20,000 food businesses which have most seen in crowded inner-city districts, 1,400 of them do not comply with the food safety regulation. The Department said that 7 percent of sidewalk eateries do not best practice on cleanliness.
The Department’s Deputy Head Dr. Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, said that currently, there are several farm produce and food importing in the city for consumption without clear indication of origin.
In addition, food businesses use banned food additives or overuse allowable substances. However, experts said that sidewalk cafes are not cleanly. Food inspectors in wards and communes are not skilled in checking food safety.
There has been a lack of equipment for checking food; accordingly, inspectors just rate food cleanliness by their feeling and eyes meanwhile it takes time to investigate the origin of a food and inspector just arrive at conclusion of food quality after testing which is not regularly carried out.
