Do Trung Hung
Legal Department
Ministry of Health
The draft Law on Food Safety, which will be submitted to the National Assembly for passage next month, provides for the rights and obligations of organizations and individuals in assuring food safety; certification of food production and trading; food import and export; food advertising and labeling; food testing and risk analysis, and prevention and control of food poisoning; public information and education about food safety; state administration of food safety; and settlement of disputes, compensation for damage and denunciations and complaints about violations of the food safety law.
Compared to the 2003 Ordinance on Food Hygiene and Safety, the draft Law has a broader governing scope with many new points. This article only focuses on matters directly related to rights and obligations of food processing and distribution enterprises.
The draft Law upholds the responsibilities of all levels, branches, organizations and individuals, with health agencies acting as the focal point in coordinating and mobilizing the participation of communities. The draft law also adopts a new method of administration of food products based on the food supply chain from production, processing to consumption. From this viewpoint, the draft Law contains many new provisions on rights and obligations of food processors and distributors.
First, the draft Law devotes two articles (Articles 6 and 7) to clearly defining the rights and obligations of food processors and distributors, of which special attention should be paid to the right to decide on and announce standards applicable to products, the right to request sellers to cooperate in the recovery and disposal of unsafe food, and obligations related to the provision of information on products.
While the announcement of applicable standards was regarded as compulsory under the 2003 Ordinance, it is now not only an obligation but also a right under the draft Law. The draft Law allows food processors and distributors to select standards to be applied to their products from a wide range of standards, including foreign and international standards recognized by Vietnam, rather than limiting the selection to in-house standards, branch standards and Vietnamese standards as currently prescribed.
In recent times, there have been many cases in which food processors were held responsible for expired or unsafe products even though they had requested distributors to recover or dispose of these products. To deal with these cases, the draft Law affirms food processors’ rights to ask for distributors cooperation in the recovery and disposal of unsafe products, aiming to clearly determine the limits of their respective liabilities.
Regarding the provision of information on food products, under the draft Law, food processors and distributors are obliged to show sufficient and accurate information on product labels, packaging or accompanying documents; provide truthful information on food safety; give prompt, adequate and accurate warnings about possible safety risks; and provide sellers and consumers with instructions to prevent these risks and requirements on food transportation, preservation and use. Food processors and distributors are also required to preserve food samples, documents and information to facilitate the tracing of food origins. These provisions are designed to prevent the marketing of food products without providing accurate information on product effects as well as risks which may occur in their use, help trace the sources of food poisoning, lay a legal foundation for the determination of penalties for violations of the law on food, and protect consumer interests.
The draft Law also specifies conditions for food safety assurance. Compared to the 2003 Ordinance, this is a completely new point. Under the draft Law, conditions for food safety assurance are provided through setting criteria, e.g., freshness or genetic modifications, for a food product to be considered safe, and specifying elements that greatly affect food safety such as additives, physical foundations, equipment and workers directly engaged in the production, transportation and preservation processes. These provisions, on one hand, will help food processors and distributors determine which criteria their products must meet to be considered safe and conditions for assuring food safety in the processing and distribution process, all the while making reasonable and proper investment and avoiding waste. These provisions will create transparent bases for competent state agencies to handle violations and for organizations and individuals to claim damages when their lawful rights and obligations are infringed.
The draft law also simplifies and clarifies administrative procedures related to food processing and distribution.
Specifically, it abolishes certificates of food products’ satisfaction of criteria, to be replaced with technical regulation- or standard-conformity certificates. It is a new administrative method aiming to improve the sense of accountability of food processors and distributions, and reduce the State workload and unnecessary licenses. With this method, the scientificity and objectivity in the process of controlling food safety are also raised. Organizations and individuals will, instead of filing dossiers of request for recognition of food safety with state administration agencies, send these dossiers to standard- or technical regulation-conformity certification organizations for certification under the Law on Standards and Technical Regulations.
The draft Law specifies dossiers and procedures of application for certificates for food processing and distribution. Accordingly, all food processors and distributors would be required to apply for the certificate, except those who produce or trade in food on a small scale, food street vendors, and those who deal in pre-packed food without strict preservation requirements, as well as food processing and distribution establishments applying modern quality control systems.
The draft Law also sets out conditions for food import and export, including the order and procedures for state inspection of imported food and cases in which imported goods are not subject to state inspection. Under the draft Law, food imported from countries which have signed with Vietnam treaties on mutual recognition of safety certifications will not be subject to state inspection, except for cases in which warnings have been given or signs of violation of Vietnam’s law are detected.
Food advertising and labeling, must comply with the law on goods advertising and labeling. However, to suit the particular characteristics of food, the draft Law sets forth a provision which is different from the current law on advertising, requiring inspection and certification of marketing contents by health agencies before advertisements are made.
Regarding food labeling, the draft Law sets specific requirements on the labeling of domestic food and special food imported into Vietnam such as functional, irradiated and genetically-modified food. The Minister of Health will be assigned to provide detailed guidance on goods labeling.
The inclusion of these issues in the draft Law will facilitate the performance of administrative procedures related to food processing and distribution and, at the same time, restrict the imposition of unnecessary procedures in the process of implementing the Law.
In sum, the draft Law on Food Safety sets strict rules in order to improve food quality and safety, attaches importance to administrative reform, and attracts domestic and foreign organizations and individuals to participate in food production and trading activities in Vietnam.-