Mr Trung said that the inspectors discovered many violations in labelling dairy products by dairy establishments. Sterilised milk, for example, was labelled ‘fresh milk’. Moreover, the content of the dairy products was not clearly shown on the packaging, which deceived customers.

Mr Trung said that it was very difficult to name the violations the establishments have made. The problem lies in the fact that the current Vietnamese standards on dairy products are not clear. There are products that meet requirements on food hygiene and have high nutritious content, but they cannot be named under the current standards. Currently, a dairy product is named ‘fresh milk’ if 100% of the product’s content is cow’s milk, while the product is named ‘sterilised fresh milk’ if it contains a certain proportion of additive. In fact, some companies produce liquid milk products made entirely of imported powder milk, and there is currently no name for these.

The Ministries of Health and Science & Technology have decided not to declare the results of the inspection until they can find names for the different kinds of dairy products available on the market.

Mr Trung said that the inspectors could not ask dairy producers to throw away all the packaging that was misprinted as the expenses for packaging printing were very high. In some cases, companies have to have their packaging printed in foreign countries, and they would lose billions of VND if they had to use other packaging.   

In related news, The HCM City Peoples’ Committee has sent a document to the Government about current milk prices. The document says that dairy producers have to purchase milk from farmers at VND5,000/kg instead of VND4,300/kg as currently.

City authorities have determined that it is necessary for dairy producers to raise milk purchasing prices in order to ensure benefits for both processors and farmers. Dairy farmers are suffering from losses due to the higher prices of food for cattle, while milk prices remain unchanged.

(Source: Tuoi tre & VNE)