Tra fish being processed for export at a factory in Can Tho city (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Good agricultural practices and food safety certification are thefirst requirements for agricultural producers who want to export or sell tointernational retail chains, experts have said.
They were speaking at a conference titled “Overcome the technical barriers forfood and agricultural products to export to EU” in HCM City on August 17.
Vietnam is still among the countries whose exports are rejected by Europeanmarkets mainly because of food safety issues.
Last year, the EU’s rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) issued 77notifications that Vietnamese exports had not qualified for import and 23shipments were rejected at the border.
In the first half of this year, the figures were 36 and 11.
Marieke Van Der Pijl, legal consultant of the Food, Agri and Aqua BusinessSector Committee of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, said the mainreasons for rejection included detection of antibiotics, crop protectionproducts and other harmful chemicals, cold-chain breaks during transportationwhich increase the chances for bacteria to develop.
Other reasons included the lack of traceability, insufficient food and farmproduce testing results and failure to meet sanitary and phytosanitaryrequirements.
She said when an export was rejected, not only was the exporter affected butthere was also a bigger consequence: harm to the reputation of Vietnameseproducts threatening their competitiveness on the international market.
Therefore, domestic producers should keep in mind that food safety was vital toenter the EU market and maintain customer loyalty since “once the trust isbroken, it is very hard to get it back,” she said.
Nguyen Huy, food manager in Vietnam for global quality certification agencyBureau Veritas, said before 2015 fishery products accounted for most foodsafety alerts from the RASFF about Vietnamese consignments.
But now, there was an increasing number of notifications on farm produce sinceexports of Vietnamese agricultural products had risen rapidly in recent years.
He said to gain access to Europe and ensure consistent quality of exports tothe market, producers should adopt the EU’s food safety standards.
He said one of the most popular certifications in Europe is the BRC GlobalStandard for Food Safety developed by food industry experts.
It provides a framework to manage product safety, integrity, legality andquality, and the operational controls for these criteria in the food and foodingredient manufacturing, processing and packing industries.
Other standards such as BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices) and especially GlobalGAP (Good Agricultural Practices) are also favoured in European markets, and infact have become quite popular among Vietnamese agricultural and fisheriesproducers.
“If producers adopt Global GAP, they will have a better chance of gainingaccess to the European market as they can speak the same language with Europeanimporters.”
Huy said one of the common features of these standards is the traceability ofproducts since in demanding markets like Europe, consumers are highly aware ofthe products they consume, especially food.
“The tracing of product origin has to go from farm to middlemen to processorsand until the packaging and labelling stage.”
Pijl said rules of origin would also be a criterion if Vietnamese exportersseek tax benefits when exporting to European markets once the Việt Nam – EUFree Trade Agreement (EVFTA) comes into force.
“It’s good news that many Vietnamese food products have geographicalindications such as Moc Chau tea, Buon Ma Thuot coffee and Hoa Loc and Chumangos. This will help the products be exported easily to foreign markets.”
According to experts at the conference, the EVFTA, likely to be ratified by theend of this year, will also bring the pressure of competing with Europeancompanies in Vietnam.
Nguyen Kim Thanh, an expert from the High-quality Vietnamese Goods BusinessAssociation, said the livestock industry would face fierce competition as aresult of the EVFTA and other free trade agreements.
She said if local producers cannot up their game by adopting food safetycontrol systems to produce high-quality products that meet internationalstandards, they could easily lose their market to imports.-VNS/VNA
