A cookingstuff stall at the Binh Tay Market in Ho Chi Minh City.

Chinese spices are being sold cheaply and widely in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City without clear indications of the expiration dates and origins, a Thanh Nien investigation has found.

Outside the Chinese bottle are misspelled Vietnamese words besides the Chinese descriptions. The label informs that the expiration date is 12 months after the date of manufacture which is not shown.

An unidentified seller at the market said spices at the market are divided into two categories, one that includes domestic and legally imported Chinese products, and another that comprises smuggled products of dubious origin and close to their expiration dates.

The legal Chinese imports are sometimes more expensive than local products while the latter is priced much lower and sold in a rush to small restaurants, said the seller.

The seller promised a discount for large purchases yet advised customers not to use the illegal spices too much. “It’s hard to know how much harm they can cause. If you are unlucky, your restaurants may be closed.”

Dubious Chinese spices were found in many markets around the capital city including Dien in Tu Liem District, Ha Dinh in Thanh Xuan District and Cau Giay in Cau Giay District.

A five-gram pocket of the famous Chinese five-spice powder in Cau Giay Market is sold at VND1,000. The label lists the manufacture date as February 2009 and the expiration date as February 2011, but there’s another line stating that the expiration date is 12 months from the date of manufacture.

Many other Chinese products at the market, including mustard, saffron, cashew nut powder, pepper and pepper sauce, do not show the origin, expiration or production dates, ingredients or instructions for use.

Sometimes the customers have nothing to follow but what the market vendors tell them.

At the Binh Tay Market, the biggest supplier of spices in HCMC, only familiar customers can access illegal Chinese imports.

“Chinese spices have a strong color,” a vendor at the market told a well-known customer on the phone. “Just a little Chinese spice and the meat will be perfectly red.”

The vendor advised the customer to only use it to cook food for your diners, adding that his customers were all owners of pubs and restaurants.

Doctor Tran Van Ky of the Vietnam Association of Food Science and Technology said all legal imports of food, additives, chemicals and colorings should show the origin, ingredients and the safety certificates.

Ky advised customers to be cautious and stay away from cheap Chinese food products that fail to tell their origin and identify their ingredients.

Those are likely made from industrial substances that contain heavy metals that are highly toxic, he said.

A food safety official in HCMC, who wished to remain unnamed, also said that Chinese additives contain a large amount of heavy metals in addition to other impurities.

“Yet food producers and processors prefer them to European additives as the former are several dozen times cheaper.”

Safe additives and colorings must be almost completely pure, said the official.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thu of the HCMC Nutrition Center also advised people not to use a food product if they are not sure of its quality.

“In cases of food poisoning, it would be hard to track the cause,” Thu said.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff