Speaking at the launching ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, gave appreciation to the efforts made by the city and relevant authorities in launching the initiative, especially at a time when the spread of unsafe food is threatening the health of more consumers.

He said that Hanoi needs to intensify food safety inspections and investigations, as well as promote the safe cultivation of raw materials and agricultural products.

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 Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam at the program. Source: VNA
The government senior official also asked the city’s leadership to consider food safety as an urgent priority, focusing all financial and human resources, equipment, and facilities on eliminating unsafe food products and practices.

Apart from focusing on identifying, inspecting and destroying unsafe food, the capital city should also invest more in “developing safe agricultural cultivation areas, widening the application of the Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGAP) and similar models, and developing safe food distribution systems,” he added.

To ensure that safe meals are delivered to the table of every family, according to the program’s initiators, there needs to be a close collaboration among five parties: the State, scientists, journalists, enterprises and consumers.

This close collaboration will not only help identify unsafe food but also solve difficulties in management, helping to control food quality from the beginning of the supply chain.

According to the program’s initiators, the four-phase program will be implemented between 2017 to 2020, to raise awareness and increase the responsibility of individuals, households and the wider community in using safe food in daily meal preparation.

During the first phase of the program, booths that provide safe food will be established at five apartment complexes. They will be extended to 30 apartment complexes by the fourth phase.

Source: VNA

Translated by Trung Thanh