Inspectors check the cooking at a warehouse of Vinafood Corporation in Ho Chi Minh City.

Animal health officials on Thursday flatly rejected complaints from local companies about tightening regulations on imports of meat and other animal parts, saying consumer safety took precedence over anything else.

“The companies cannot blame the regulations for their loss and difficulties in re-exporting low-quality products,” said Mai Van Hiep, deputy head of the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, during a meeting with more than 50 importers of frozen meat Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City.

“It is unacceptable. Consumers should not have to eat food labeled inedible or contaminated with bacteria up to two or three times higher than allowed levels,” he said.

“The department will always be ready to listen to importers but we have to respect the health of consumers,” the official added.

The meeting was held to offer more information about two documents issued by the department recently that banned import of animal penis and entrails as human food. The import of hearts, livers and kidneys of livestock are approved.

Also, meat imported for human food that fails to meet safety criteria as regulated by the Ministry of Health cannot be irradiated for selling and have to be re-exported, its end-used changed, or destroyed.

Truong Thi Kim Chau, deputy head of the HCMC Animal Health Agency, also said the health of consumers must come first and criteria for meat imported into Vietnam have to be the same as those implemented by the US and European countries.

“Animal products failing to meet safety criteria must be destroyed,” she said.

She also said that recent inspections found many companies violating regulations on labeling and indicating the expiration date.

Some companies attached the required extra-label in Vietnamese language with expiry dates later than the original, she said.

Ta Trong Khang, deputy head of Animal Health Agency of Binh Duong Province, also criticized companies for not paying attention to attaching extra labels to imported meat products.

“The companies considered labeling a significant issue only when their violations were detected,” he added.

Nguyen Xuan Binh, deputy director of the Animal Health Agency Zone VI, said they have asked importers to implement Vietnamese regulations on carrying the expiry date of frozen meat at between 12-18 months on consignments from the US that did not indicate the expiry date.

He also admitted shortcomings in the agency’s management of the issue, blaming it on a shortage of personnel and equipment.

Hygiene vs. benefit

A representative of Vinafood Corporation said the company had imported foodstuff from the US and Canada where there are strict regulations on food safety, and that the exporters had told them the product could be safe for a long time when stored below minus 18 degrees Celsius.

“It is unreasonable to say our imported products had expired,” he said.

The statement was made at the meeting despite inspectors last Wednesday finding hundreds of tons of expired processed food at its warehouses in HCMC.

More than 900 cartons of goods and 17 tons of pork chops and pig’s feet inspected at Vinafood’s Binh Tan District warehouse last Wednesday had been recently re-labeled, with the expiration date changed from April 23, 2009 to April 23, 2010.

Officials inspecting the company’s warehouses in District 7 and Binh Chanh District over the two previous days had also discovered hundreds of tons of processed meat that had expired or had no production or expiry dates.

Representatives of other companies complained the strict regulations could hurt their business.

An official of the Con Son Company in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province said many of their foreign partners had complained about Vietnam’s strict regulations on importing food.

“They refused their products to be re-exported, saying importers in Vietnam were buying small quantities,” he said. “It would be huge loss because the foreign partner could refuse to refund the money for re-exported consignments.”

Luu Thi Minh Hien, head of the import and export section of food processing firm Vissan in HCMC, said the Department of Animal Health should reconsider the newly ban on irradiating meat.

“Many foreign exporters have stopped supplying food materials because of the strict regulations although they had received the order and the payment,” she said. “This would significantly affect the business of domestic firms.”

A representative of Dong A Co. Ltd said there should be more advanced process of testing and approving samples of meat that are imported and stored at the nation’s ports.

A representative of another food importer argued that there should not be strict regulations on meat imports while management of local meat is lax.

Reported by Quang Thuan