The price of functional foods, from heaven to earth

Just by entering a drug store, supermarket or going online, consumers can get lost in a "maze" of functional foods (FF) with all kinds of products such as supporting the relief of bone and joint pain, supporting the treatment of incurable diseases such as cancer or foods for weight loss, rejuvenation, hormone enhancement, sexual health, with prices that are also... "mazelike".

Evidence of functional foods seized by the Market Management force. Photo: Quang Hung.

Buy 1 sell 10

Walking around some stores, supermarkets, and drug stores on Lang Ha, Chua Lang, and Thai Thinh streets (Hanoi)... we can see the rich variety and prices of some types of dietary supplements advertised as imported in origin being sold on the market.

The same item, the same type of product, but the price is different in each place, from a few tens of thousands of VND to millions of VND/box. For example, the R. bone and joint support supplement, which is listed as being produced in the US, is priced at 340,000 VND/bottle at a pharmacy on Lang Pagoda Street, but at a drug supermarket in Lang Ha, it is priced at 310,000 VND/bottle; meanwhile, the import price of this product, according to the reporter's research, is 7 USD (about more than 150,000 VND). Or the product Bi... Sheep Placenta is priced at 900,000 VND on the market, while the import price is 2.7 AUD (more than 40,000 VND).

According to research, the demand for beauty-related dietary supplements such as Sheep Placenta is currently being trusted by many women, and the prices of these products are also "sky-high". For example, the Sheep Placenta product Gol... is being sold for 1.3 to 1.5 million VND/bottle and the import price is 15.81 USD (about 300,000 VND), 5-6 times higher. The Sheep Placenta P... is being sold on the market for 700,000-800,000 VND/bottle while the customs declaration price is 8 Australian dollars (about 120,000 VND); or the weight loss dietary supplement Om... (containing Vitamins) produced in the US is being sold on the market for 250-300,000 VND, while the import price is 1.56 USD (about 20,000 VND), more than 10 times higher.

Products related to memory support are also being sought after by many consumers, leading to this product also being sold at a high price. Boni... dietary supplement is being sold at drug stores at 400,000 VND and the customs declaration price is 1.2 USD (about 25,000 VND).

Through this, it can be seen that the actual price that the enterprise sells and the declared price often differ by about 3-4 times, in particular, there are products that differ by 20 times (such as Bios products... imported price is only 40,000 VND but sold for nearly 1 million VND).

For those who want to use dietary supplements to support the treatment of diseases such as cancer, bones and joints, cardiovascular disease, infertility... the price is much higher, such as the product advertised to support the treatment of cancer Vit.., imported from Cuba, priced at 6 million VND/30ml bottle; or the product Sun G... from Korea, introduced as the best cancer treatment, also costs up to 2-3 million VND/bottle of 180 pills; dietary supplements Ag... advertised to support cancer treatment are sold in some places for 1.2 million VND but in other places for only 700,000-800,000 VND/box. With such a price difference, many people are surprised. Is the quality of the product as advertised?

Smuggled functional foods seized by Quang Ninh Customs force Photo: Quang Hung

Many tricks of counterfeiting and price gouging

According to the reporter's investigation, the current discount rate for distributing dietary supplements is too high, causing the selling price to be inflated many times higher than the price of the importing and distributing company, in some places the discount rate is 30-40% on each product. That's not to mention the costs of advertising, organizing events, PR tricks... so when the product reaches consumers, it often has a "sky-high" price like the present. Not to mention, even though it is sold at a high price, is the quality of these dietary supplements commensurate, is it true to its real value or is it "magically" transformed from poor quality food into dietary supplements? This is a completely legitimate concern when recently, there have been continuous cases of fake dietary supplements being discovered by authorities.

The reason for the above "price chaos", according to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong, Director of the Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health, is that due to profit, many people have taken advantage of the huge demand for dietary supplements, deliberately producing fake dietary supplements, importing dietary supplements from China and labeling them with product lines from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc. In addition, because many consumers do not fully understand dietary supplements, organizations and businesses have propagated and distributed many dietary supplement advertising documents that are not true to the effects of the product, advertising dietary supplements as being able to cure various diseases.

At the same time, the Director of the Department of Food Safety also emphasized that the Ministry of Health will strengthen management, inspection, and examination in the production and trading of functional foods and handle violations; strictly handle and revoke licenses for violating establishments, publicly announce the names of establishments, product names, and violations on mass media. Direct the Department of Health of provinces and cities to strengthen propaganda and education on food safety knowledge for production and trading establishments of functional foods in the area; publicly announce the names of establishments and functional food products with violations on mass media to promptly warn the community; propagate so that people understand and use functional foods correctly, and do not use functional foods indiscriminately.

With the current chaotic situation of prices and quality of dietary supplements, consumers need to be alert to information advertised on social networking sites; should have verification and legal and scientific basis before deciding to buy/use the product to avoid buying fake or poor quality products, avoiding the situation of "losing money and getting sick".

D.Ngan/baohaiquan