Hundreds of people are hospitalized each year due to food poisoning. This is after eating meals supplied by some catering enterprises.
Health authorities on January 4 inspected the catering plant of Minh Trang in the district of Tan Binh, Ho Chi Minh City. Inspectors discovered that the catering facility had a number of heath issues concerning hygiene.
These included dirty floors, the cutting boards for meat placed to close to toilets, and dirty and unhygienic cooking containers.
In addition, the inspectors found that some food items expiry date had passed, and other food items have dubious origins. These were six packages of floor and soy sauce containers.
Furthermore, the inspectors also discovered the catering plant had kept the additives and spices maintained incorrectly; therefore, the inspectors ordered the plant to destroy expired flour and the inspectors took the spices for further testing.
In the area of Minh Tam in District 3, a caterer had dirty kitchens, which attracted many flies and other insects. Inspectors found at the premises, contaminated meat and red coloring spices, that failed to meet hygiene regulations. Therefore, they decided to close the business down and seized the unsafe food.
Health authorities admitted that they were unable to check all food catering facilities, because of a shortage of personnel. Therefore, new cases of food poisoning are being reported each day.
Huynh Le Thai Hoa, head of the municipal Health Department's Food Hygiene and Safety Division, said some caterers prepared their meals too close to drainages areas and the cooking equipment used is unhygienic.
