Chinese mung beans + chemicals = Thick, long, and visually appealing bean sprouts
Mung beans are bought from the open market at a price of 1.7 - 1.8 million VND/bag (50kg), and during production, chemicals are added to make the bean sprouts bigger, thicker, and longer...
At 9:00 AM on May 7th, a joint inter-agency inspection team for food safety and hygiene in Tan Phu District, in collaboration with the Tan Quy Ward Police, conducted a surprise inspection of two bean sprout production facilities located at 35/47 and 35/51 Do Thua Luong Street, Tan Quy Ward, Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City. The inspection revealed violations at both facilities, including: "using chemicals of unknown origin in food production and processing" and "not possessing a business registration certificate as required by law."
Tools and equipment used in bean sprout production.
When the inspection team raided the production facility at house number 35/47 Do Thua Luong Street, owned by Vu Van Huyen (born in 1987, residing in Nam Dinh province), authorities discovered workers using mung beans in 50kg bags with Chinese characters printed on them. In addition, the police seized 2.5kg of chemicals in tubes with no verifiable origin.
Located near the aforementioned facility is the bean sprout production facility of Mr. Do Van Quan (born in 1969, residing in Nam Dinh province) at house number 35/51. During an inspection, authorities discovered two 50kg bags of mung beans with Chinese characters printed on them, 4.2kg of chemicals of unknown origin (in tubes), and 25kg of powdered chemicals of unknown origin. Mr. Quan admitted to purchasing mung beans from the open market at a price of 1.7 - 1.8 million VND per 50kg bag and adding chemicals during production to make the bean sprouts larger, thicker, and longer before selling them in local markets. All the chemicals were seized by the police for further investigation.
Notably, when questioned by authorities, the two business owners naively claimed they were unaware that such production methods were harmful to consumers' health. They even asserted that they followed suit, seeing many others doing the same to make a living.
After discovering violations at the two production facilities, the authorities issued administrative violation reports. For the violations mentioned, the authorities will impose an administrative fine of over 20 million VND on each facility.
According to Dan Viet - TH
