A pilot food management project will establish a network of shops selling organic food in Ho Chi Minh City next year, under a proposal submitted to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
All food products, including meat, fish and vegetables, will be produced in a controlled environment, from breeding, feeding and slaughtering to the use of water resources, pesticides and veterinary medicine.
The products will meet the Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGap) standards and have packaging identifying them as belonging to the organic food supply chain.
"All production processes will be marked in a way that allows managers to easily trace the origin of a product and to know who is responsible for quality," said Truong Thanh Cong, senior official of the municipal Health Department's Food Hygiene and Safety Division.
Cong said that for a vegetable to meet VietGap standards, it will be checked for 20 factors, from climate, terrain, water resources and seeds to pesticides.
At present, food is produced, processed, distributed and checked by different authorities including agriculture, health, industry and trade.
"The project is set up to link all management levels with the aim of ensuring safe food for customers," said Huynh Le Thai Hoa, head of the division.
The legal framework for the project will be provided the Food Hygiene and Safety Law that took effect on July 1 this year.
"The law doesn't force but encourages every farmer and enterprise to join the chain," Hoa explained.
He believed that by 2015, the project would gain important successes and the model would be replicated throughout the country.
"Customers will only use hygienic and safe foods while enterprises can strengthen their brand names in the market at the same time," he added.
However, Hoa also admitted that at the first stage, the project would face several difficulties due to small production units (households), limited number of organic farms and high costs for VietGap assessment and operation.
"Expenditure for organic food will be high, making it difficult to sell it," he said.
However, with rising concern about the rampant sale of unsafe food, Hoa also felt it was time for the organic food industry to make good.
"We must develop the model to improve the situation. It would help enterprises grow and customers will know where they can buy safe food," he said.
It was a good sign that many food processing companies have expressed their interest in the project and registered to join the chain, he added.
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