Locals buying jams from Ho Chi Minh City’s Ben Thanh market.

Fake drinks and unhygienic cookings prepared for the Tet (Lunar New Year) season have prompted Ho Chi Minh City officials to keep closer watch on the market.

The bottles, branded Hennessy and St. Remy Martin, were about to be transported to nearby provinces for sale during the holiday, which comes in one week.

The bureau’s Ly Ngoc Thang told Thanh Nien that the owner of the shop had failed to show documents proving its origin.

Thang said the officials have discovered fraudulent production and trade every day so far this month, mostly of footwear, clothes, liquor, cell phones and cosmetic products.

On Thursday the city market management bureau and Go Vap District police caught workers making fake Hennessy V.S.O.P. wine at the local Chi Thanh Beverage Company’s factory.

Sugar, flavorings, alcohol and water were added into Crown 99 wine before the mixture was poured into bottles labeled Hennessy V.S.O.P. Several bottles even had import stamps on them.

The inspectors found alcohol concentration weighing machines and empty bottles as well as carton boxes branded with foreign wine names.

They also found more than 5,200 bottles of fake Vietnamese wine, falsely claiming to be made from pip banana, gecko or glutinous rice.

Nguyen Hong Lam of the market management office said the company takes the wine to the market immediately after producing it, adding that it was also producing the liquors on order.

Even the ochna plants, whose yellow flowers are displayed in most homes for Tet, have not been spared.

A resident in District 11 was recently cheated into buying a budding one at VND1 million (US$57).

The resident said the vendor first charged VND3 million, saying the market price for the tree wouldn’t be less than VND10 million.

Only when the tree started to shed leaves after a week did he realize that the tree was made by attaching several ochna branches to a log.

Unsanitary Tet foods

Over the past month the HCMC Health Department has found 11 producers of jams and sausages having violated food safety regulations.

The foods were produced with old tools in dirty conditions while the workers were not trained for maintaining food safety and hygiene, as well as not being equipped with safety tools.

A tamarind jam producer in Tan Phu District’s Tan Son Nhi Ward was making the jam on the floor with no partition between the warehouse and the processing place.

At a factory in District 11’s Ward 8, which supplies many types of jam to markets in HCMC, workers were processing materials on the sidewalk.

They used lime to soak the processed materials in plastic buckets which were placed near drains and toilets.

The inspectors suspended the factory and asked local health officials to monitor how the factory improves its food safety standards.

They also took 14 food samples from restaurants and markets for testing, and found one pork pie sample tainted with borax.

On Saturday, Huynh Thi Nhan from HCMC Communist Party unit and Nguyen Thi Hong from the city People’s Committee ordered stricter control upon the pricing and food safety standards at two large wholesale markets for agricultural products – Hoc Mon in Hoc Mon District and Binh Dien in District 8.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff