The attractive advertisements of “ Gia Lai specialties”, “Tay Nguyen specialties with authentic flavors” are hard for consumers to resist. However, behind those dried beef pieces and dried beef strips is the worry of dirty food, fake goods, unknown origin, which pose a potential risk to health and lose the value of real specialties.
Warning about cheap beef jerky online
Just by browsing e-commerce platforms, consumers can easily find many stalls selling beef jerky at shockingly cheap prices, ranging from 250-400 thousand VND/kg, packaged by sellers in different weights in the form of zip bags, cans, and jars. Many sellers film close-up videos of real beef jerky with beautiful colors, attractive spices, plus advertisements that guarantee it is delicious like real beef.
According to the reporter's research, the price of 1 kg of dried beef is about 600 thousand VND, the premium type is more expensive. To produce 1 kg of standard finished product, the maker must use 2.2-3 kg of beef tenderloin or beef thigh, depending on the degree of drying, the loss rate will be different. Therefore, the selling price on the market also fluctuates from 700-900 thousand VND/kg. This makes it difficult for Gia Lai dried beef to compete with cheap dried beef sold online.
The question is whether those cheap beef jerky products are actually beef or another type of meat "disguised" as beef, soaked in chemical coloring and industrial flavorings to deceive buyers?
Ms. Huynh Thi Linh (Group 2, Hoa Lu Ward, Pleiku City) once encountered the situation of "losing money and getting nothing in return". She said: "Looking at the image of their livestream, I found it eye-catching so I bought it to try. However, when I took a bite, I knew right away that it was not real beef because the beef felt soft and crumbly, full of flavoring, completely unlike the beef jerky I had eaten."
Expressing concern when recently a series of dirty food, fake food, food of unknown origin on the market were handled by the authorities, Ms. Tran Thi Huong (alley 184 Pham Van Dong, Pleiku City) said: “Nowadays, when buying food, we have to be very careful, choose reputable stores, including traditional sales channels as well as online channels. I often buy beef jerky at a facility in Gia Lai for 750-850 thousand VND/kg, but when surfing the internet, many places sell it for only 250 thousand VND/kg, the premium type is only 400 thousand VND/kg. Therefore, consumers need to be alert, because if it is real beef jerky, it will never be so cheap.”
Genuine establishments find it difficult to compete.
Faced with this situation, the authorities recommend that consumers should only buy beef jerky at reputable establishments with business licenses and full food safety inspections, and absolutely not be greedy for cheap prices, or buy floating goods or goods of unknown origin online. At the same time, food processing and trading establishments in the province need to increase promotion, certify origin, and protect the reputation of local specialties against the problem of counterfeit and poor-quality goods that are rampant on the "online market".
Ms. Tran Thi Diem Kieu - Deputy Director of Huy Vu Dried Beef One Member Co., Ltd. (Dak Doa district) shared: "Businesses are also facing a difficult situation of competing on e-commerce platforms with many cheap dried beef products being sold everywhere today. Especially online stores often use the brand name of Tay Nguyen dried beef or Gia Lai dried beef. Therefore, it will be difficult for consumers to know which products are real and which are fake."
According to Ms. Kieu, only those in the profession can distinguish between beef jerky made from cows, pigs, or smuggled frozen buffalo. By looking at it with the naked eye, a large piece of beef jerky the size of 2-3 hands put together is definitely not made from beef. When eating these types of meat, you will feel the meat is very soft and crumbly, while beef jerky will be sweeter and the meat has a certain toughness.
“Currently, most beef jerky production facilities in Gia Lai mainly develop on traditional distribution systems and retail channels, and it is difficult to compete on e-commerce platforms. But I think, if you do business honestly, you have to maintain quality, work honestly, and sell honestly. Once customers come to you, they are very interested in product quality. Even though they sell less, their customer base will be stable for a long time. At that time, honest businesses in Gia Lai will have a better position in the market,” said Ms. Kieu.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ly Anh Thu - Representative of Ty Van dried beef facility (Krong Pa district) said: As for dried beef, the facility only makes it during Tet or when regular customers order because normally, consumers still have the mentality of choosing to buy cheap products, making it difficult for genuine products to compete in the market. Legitimate businesses are also pushed into a difficult situation in the consumption stage amid a wide range of prices and quality.
Through the investigation of the reporter, the raw materials to make cheap beef jerky are actually processed from pork mixed with chemicals to create beef flavor or frozen buffalo meat smuggled from India at a price of only 1/3 of the price of beef. Currently, there are still places that import cheap beef jerky at a wholesale price of 210,000 VND/kg, then resell it at 350-400,000 VND/kg, some places even sell it for up to 600,000 VND/kg, 3 times higher than the import price. For many consumers, they cannot distinguish between real and fake and are still willing to choose the cheaper price, then turn their backs on the real specialty.
Therefore, many establishments expressed their hope that this peak campaign to check and prevent smuggled goods and goods of unknown origin, which is being deployed nationwide, will contribute to restoring market order, creating a healthy business environment, protecting local specialty brands and ensuring consumer health and safety.
Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/bo-kho-gia-re-tran-ngap-cho-mang-post327588.html
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