Magical cooking oil for livestock: A serious violation of food safety regulations

On June 25, in response to the fact that some production facilities used imported cooking oil intended for animal feed to produce and process cooking oil for human consumption, the Food Safety Department (FSD, Ministry of Health) issued a warning stating that this is a serious violation of food safety regulations, potentially affecting public health.

The Food Safety Department pointed out that, according to Article 39 of Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP of the Government (detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Food Safety Law), vegetable oil belongs to the group of products under the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Trade for state management of food safety, including the entire chain of production, processing, trading and circulation on the market. Using imported cooking oil for animal feed to produce and process into cooking oil for human food has the potential to affect health.

To prevent risks and ensure consumer safety, the Food Safety Department recommends that food production and trading establishments, especially collective kitchens and ready-to-eat meal suppliers, need to request suppliers to clarify the product's declaration and raw material records, not only relying on packaging and labels; do not use ingredients not for the declared purpose in food processing, even if they are sufficient; invoices and documents; when detecting suspicion, promptly inform the authorities for handling according to regulations.

OFOOD cooking oil products derived from animal feed are turned into cooking oil products for humans.

The Food Safety Department requires production units and enterprises to comply with the correct purpose of using food ingredients, not only as a technical requirement, but also as a mandatory legal responsibility. Any act of intentionally using ingredients other than the registered purpose for food processing, especially in cases where the ingredients are not safe for consumers, will be considered and strictly handled by the authorities according to the provisions of law.

Recently, Hung Yen Provincial Police have dismantled a ring that sold a large amount of fake cooking oil that did not meet food safety standards, and prosecuted three ringleaders and seized more than 1,000 tons of smuggled oil. Notably, the main places of consumption targeted by the subjects were collective kitchens, restaurants, eateries, craft villages that process confectionery and snacks for children.

Specifically, the OFOOD cooking oil product of Nhat Minh Food Production and Import-Export Company Limited is vegetable oil used to produce animal feed, which does not meet food safety standards but has been discovered to be sold on the market in tens of thousands of tons, under the name of cooking oil for humans. To legalize the process, the subjects set up a series of front companies, announced fake food products and then widely sold them.

Along with the above enterprise, in this chain, there is also An Hung Phuoc Import-Export Trading Company Limited, which has assisted in consuming substandard cooking oil. The police agency clarified that the subjects have profited from two main sources. Firstly, the difference in selling price, when cooking oil for humans is sold at about 17% higher than that for livestock. Secondly, evading value added tax (cooking oil for humans is subject to 8% tax, while oil for livestock is exempt from tax (0%). Hung Yen Provincial Police determined that in the past 3 years, the revenue of the companies in this chain has reached more than 8,200 billion VND.

NGUYEN QUOC

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/dau-an-chan-nuoi-duoc-phu-phep-hanh-vi-vi-pham-nghiem-trong-quy-dinh-ve-an-toan-thuc-pham-post800920.html