In the ceremony, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, Director of the HCMC Department of Food Safety informed that the Action Month for Food Safety, themed ‘Maintaining Food Security, Safety in the New Context’, lasts from April 15 to May 15.
The three main focuses of this year are: increasing inspections on food safety at different levels, preventing and timely punishing law violations related to food safety, running more propaganda activities to raise the awareness of the public, especially consumers and food traders about safety and sanitation.
When detecting activities in food processing or selling that do not guarantee food safety, people should immediately report to functional agencies for prompt handling.
Deputy Director Nguyen Hung Long of the Agency of Food Safety (under the Ministry of Health) said that for this Action Month to be most effective, HCMC should closely monitor new food manufacturing and trading models.
Online trading of food should receive particular attention because it is increasingly popular to the community, yet it possesses certain risks of food unsafety, low-quality and even fake products. There should be corresponding adjustments in monitoring measures to suit the new context.
Simultaneously, food safety issues in and around schools should also receive special attention. There are suspicious cases of food containing drugs being sold around schools, which has raised concern in the community lately.
