Food Safety – Mission Possible?

HCMC – Fresh Studio gave a presentation during a joint-event of the EuroCham Food Agri Aqua Business Sector Committee (FAASC) and the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

The recently established Food, Agri, Aqua Business sector committee (FAASC) under the European Chamber of Commerce (EuroCham) in Vietnam, organized in close cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Embassy a successful event titled: Food safety – Mission Possible?

Over 150 participants from both the private and public sector discussed how to improve food safety across the agriculture chain.

Public sector
The vision of the FAASC on this theme was presented by the director of De Heus, Mr. Gabor Fluit. In his presentation he emphasized the urgent need to develop a central agency in Vietnam for food safety control. Currently, food safety issues are managed by different agencies which belong to various ministries. This current structure makes it difficult to respond efficiently and quickly in times of emergency (e.g. food poisoning). Also, it limits export possibilities for local producers, since importing countries require high standards in this area. Mr. Ron Dwinger, a representative of the Dutch Food Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), shared in his presentation the history and experiences in the Netherlands of developing a centralized food safety authority. This was a process of more than 30 years, in which different organizations were merged.

The presentation invoked a lot of questions and discussion from the various representatives from Vietnamese ministries and food safety control authorities.

Private sector
Presentations from the private sector showed what could be done in the field to improve food safety in agro-chains.

Siebe van Wijk, Managing Director of Fresh Studio, shared various experiences of Dutch public private sector funded projects, in which through cooperation between Vietnam and the Netherlands food safety was improved considerably.

In the final presentation, Mrs. Ina Enting of the Holland Pig Association presented a new initiative in which both the Vietnamese and Dutch public and private sector will cooperate closely to improve food safety in the Vietnamese pork sector.

For more information about FAASC: Fresh Studio Co-founder of FAASC or Eurochamvn/FAASC

Source: Eurocham Vietnam & Holland in VietnamAlso interesting to read:

• Fresh Studio co-founder of the Food Agri & Aqua Business Sector Committee (FAASC)