Nghe An: The chemical that dyes fresh bamboo shoots yellow is yellow dye.

(Baonghean.vn) - On the afternoon of April 21, Colonel Tran Huu Hong - Head of the Environmental Police Department (PC49 - Nghe An Provincial Police) said that the chemical sample used by fresh bamboo shoot production facilities was yellow o.

Colonel Hong said that after the environmental police force discovered and caught bamboo shoot processing facilities using strange chemicals to bleach and dye bamboo shoots yellow, the unit sent chemical samples to the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Product Quality Management (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of the province) to send to Ho Chi Minh City for testing and determining the toxicity level of these chemicals.

Chemical samples taken from the facilities of Ms. Pham Thi Trang and Mr. Le Duc Son were identified as yellow ochre.

Test results show that the yellow chemical used by bamboo shoot production facilities is the banned substance Auramine O (also known as yellow o).

Yellow ochre is a synthetic colorant used in industry to dye fabrics, paper, wood, etc. and in construction as a paint color for walls. Because yellow ochre is toxic, affects human health, and can cause cancer, it cannot be used in food processing. After the test results are available, PC49 is completing the documents to punish these establishments according to regulations, Colonel Hong added.

As reported by Nghe An Newspaper, on April 5, the Environmental Crime Investigation Police Department (Provincial Police) suddenly inspected two fresh bamboo shoot processing facilities of Mr. Le Duc Son and Ms. Pham Thi Trang, both residing in Block 2, Doi Cung Ward, Vinh City.

At these two facilities, in addition to discovering 25 tons of bamboo shoots that smelled bad and did not meet food hygiene and safety conditions, the environmental police force also discovered that two facilities were using white and yellow chemicals to process bamboo shoots.

Ms. Pham Thi Trang's production facility has about 10 tons of pre-processed bamboo shoots, soaked in water mixed with yellow powder.

It is known that Mr. Son’s fresh bamboo shoot processing facility has been operating for more than 15 years; Ms. Trang’s facility has been operating for 5 years. Each day, these two processing facilities sell an average of about 200kg of fresh bamboo shoots soaked in chemicals to the market.

Working with the police, Ms. Pham Thi Trang stated that she bought the yellow powder used to soak bamboo shoots at Thao Loc kiosk in Vinh market.

After that, expanding the investigation into the case of checking the Thao Loc kiosk at Vinh market, Nghe An environmental police discovered that the owner of this kiosk was selling nearly 10kg of yellow powder, 12 sacks containing white powder, weighing 500kg. The owner of the kiosk could not present relevant documents regarding the origin of these chemicals.

Huy Phong