On July 7, the Executive Team of Agricultural Products Connection 970 – Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) organized an online forum: “Diversifying processed and preserved fruit and vegetable products in line with the consumer market”.
At the forum, Mr. Ngo Xuan Nam, Deputy Director of the Viet Nam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point (SPS Vietnam Office, MARD), said that in the first 6 months of 2022, Vietnam had 9 products in the fruit and vegetable group that were warned by the import market in Europe (EU).
The alerts focus on the violation of pesticide residue levels beyond EU regulations: one alert of organoleptic violations and one alert of aflatoxin violations in the pre-processing and processing phases.
Rambutan is one of the products that has been warned and destroyed in the Netherlands due to violations of the pesticide quotas. (Photo: Internet)
In 9 warned cases, there was dragonfruit (one case due to excess residues, one case did not reach the organoleptic level), rambutan, lychee, chili pepper, dried galangal, dried mango, cashew nuts, and chili sauce. Depending on the warned hazard, consignments will be destroyed, withdrawn, detained, or only notified to authorities.
Among those destroyed, chili sauce was warned in the Republic of Cyprus, due to containing banned substances E 110 – Sunset Yellow FCF and E124 – Ponceau 4R/cochineal red A. The exporter of this product is Da Ta Food Company Limited (Ward 15, Tan Binh District, HCMC).
The other two cases of destruction are a consignment of rambutan exported to the Netherlands and dragonfruit exported to France due to violations of pesticide quotas.
On a large scale, from January to June 2022, there were 2,251 alerts worldwide from the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), of which only 40 (accounting for 1.77%) alerts were for Vietnam’s agricultural and food products.
This shows that agricultural products and food products from Vietnam have gradually met the regulations of the import market, minimizing the cases of violation (risks are always present in production – business activities).