Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has tasked the
Ministry of Health to quickly clarify the contents of an article published by
Thanh Niên (Young People) newspaper about “industrial” fish sauces containing a
number of chemical additives being sold in the market. — Photo zing.vn
Prime
Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has tasked the Ministry of Health to quickly clarify
the contents of an article published by Thanh Niên (Young People) newspaper
about “industrial” fish sauces containing a number of chemical additives being
sold in the market.
The Prime
Minister’s requirement was issued a few hours after the newspaper published an
article titled “Water + chemicals = industrial fish sauce” on Monday morning.
In Việt
Nam, traditional fish sauce is made from two ingredients - fish and salt, thus
it has high concentrations of protein and salinity. In the meantime,
"industrial fish sauce" has much lower concentration of protein and
salinity, and contains dozens of chemical additives.
Phúc asked
the health ministry to co-operate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to
conduct inspections and submit a report to him before October 22.
According
to Thanh Niên (Young People) newspaper, up to 17 chemical additives, including
flavour enhancers, colouring agents, and preservatives were found in one of the
most popular industrial fish sauces on the market. Additionally, the popular
fish sauce did not provide information on exactly how much of its sauce was
made from fish.
Thanh
Niên newspaper also quoted Trần Văn Ký, a doctor from the Việt Nam Food Safety
Association (VINAFOSA), who said that although the chemical additives used in
industrial fish sauces were permitted by authorised agencies, consumers’ health
might still be affected if they consume it on a daily basis.
In
another development, participants at a workshop, themed “ Fish sauce –
Conserving and developing traditional fish sauce” held on Monday in HCM City
said there should be a regulation to standardise nutritional information given
on each bottle of fish sauce so that consumers could easily distinguish between
traditional and "industrial fish sauce".
At
present, each producer provided nutritional information under their own
guidelines, potentially confusing "industrial fish sauce" with traditional
fish sauce, the participants said.
The
confusion would affect the competitiveness of traditional fish sauce producers,
Ngô Quang Tú, head of Processing and Preserving Seafood Office under the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Department said.
This was
because the traditional fish sauce, with higher concentration of protein and
salinity, often was sold at higher prices than "industrial fish
sauce", he said.
Additionally,
traditional fish sauce producers nationwide also faced difficulties in
competing with industrial fish sauce producers due to a lack of anchovy supply
– the main material in traditional fish sauce, said Nguyễn Thị Tịnh, former
head of Phú Quốc Fish Sauce Association.
Therefore,
traditional fish sauce producers suffer increasing production costs, pushing
the selling price higher than that of industrial fish sauce, she said.
It costs
about about VNĐ43,000 ($2) per litre of "industrial fish sauce" and
about VNĐ160,000-200,000 ($7-9) per litre of traditional fish sauce, depending
on the concentration of protein.
Statistics
from the General Statistics Office showed the country consumes about 200
million litres of fish sauce each year.
According
to Euromonitor data, Việt Nam’s fish sauce market was worth VNĐ11.3 trillion
(US$506 million) in 2015, of which "industrial fish sauce" accounted
for 76 per cent.
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