Bird's nest, lingzhi mushroom, ginseng sold like vegetables
Just walking around some markets in Ho Chi Minh City such as An Dong (District 5), Binh Tay (District 6)... customers will be "dazzled" by health-enhancing products such as bird's nest, lingzhi mushroom, ginseng, shark fin... sold together with shrimp and dried fish.
Ganoderma mushroom cures... cancer (!?)
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| Bird's nests without labels or origin are sold at Binh Tay market, District 6, Ho Chi Minh City (photo taken on the afternoon of May 18 - Photo: Thuan Thang) |
According to Mr. H, all types of bird's nests on the market, from blood bird's nest, red bird's nest, white bird's nest, broken bird's nest... are sold here. Of which, blood bird's nest has the highest price of about 4.3 million VND/tael, while other types of bird's nest are from 2.5-4 million VND/tael depending on the type and quality.
At a dry goods stall in An Dong market, when we wanted to buy lingzhi mushrooms, the stall owner brought out two plastic bags to introduce them, along with a rather impressive advertisement:
“Just bring it home, slice it, and simmer it with water many times to improve health, help the elderly recover quickly, reduce stress and fatigue, and even cure cancer!” Despite its “special” properties, each bag only costs 500,000 - 600,000 VND depending on the Korean or Vietnamese type.
Walking through the stalls and shops selling lingzhi mushrooms and ginseng, customers can feel dizzy because of the variety of products and prices that differ dozens of times.
At the showroom on Thang Long Street (Tan Binh District), according to the staff's explanation, there are five or six products made from red ginseng alone, such as red ginseng extract, red ginseng water, red ginseng wine, red ginseng preparations, ginseng candy... with prices ranging from several hundred thousand to several million VND/product depending on the type.
Ambiguous origin
Mr. Thai Anh Tu (Phu Nhuan District), who has bought ginseng many times for his relatives to use, recounted a case of buying fake ginseng products despite being quite careful when examining the goods.
According to Mr. Tu, before deciding to buy a box of ginseng soaked in honey for 1.7 million VND, he went to the store on Nguyen Tri Phuong Street (District 10) to carefully study the label details of each product box.
But when I brought it home and opened the box, I was shocked to find that it was Chinese ginseng, which was only half the price on the market.
Similarly, Ms. Hoa (Ward 15, Tan Binh District) said she was also scammed when buying Korean lingzhi mushrooms. After researching online, Ms. Hoa contacted a store to order 10 boxes of Gold brand lingzhi mushrooms, which were introduced as imported from Korea for only 600,000 VND/box.
However, after using the product, Ms. Hoa discovered that there was Chinese writing on the outside of the package. When she contacted the seller, the store stated that they had "checked the product before buying" and refused to return the product.
According to our research, the types of lingzhi mushrooms sold at An Dong and Binh Tay markets... are mainly of two types, of which the large cap mushroom introduced is of Korean origin.
However, the stall owners all gave a general answer that “the suppliers gave us the goods, but we don’t know where they came from!”, when we asked about this type of Korean lingzhi mushroom. As for the smaller mushroom, packaged in plastic bags, the vendors said it was an ancient mushroom, taken from the forest!
Even some large Korean lingzhi mushroom businesses on Thang Long Street (Tan Binh District), Nguyen Tri Phuong Street (District 10)... most of the products sold do not have Vietnamese sub-labels and do not state the importer.
Bird's nests sold in markets and some stores are mostly contained in large glass jars without any labels stating the origin or uses of the product, although the stall owners firmly assert: "All are Khanh Hoa bird's nests".
Most of the goods are smuggled.
Master Co Duc Trong - director of the Center for Research on Ganoderma and Medicinal Mushrooms - affirmed that most imported Ganoderma mushrooms are imported through unofficial channels or hand-carried, and their quality is not tested.
The product is packaged with printed or embossed letters on the mushroom, but does not clearly state the place of manufacture or the importer like other consumer products.
According to Mr. Trong, people in the profession themselves need to have certain knowledge to be able to distinguish between Korean and Chinese lingzhi mushrooms because they are very similar.
“Currently, some companies advertise to sell Ganoderma grown in Vietnam, but in fact most of them are Chinese goods. The price of Chinese Ganoderma is very cheap, only about 150,000 VND/kg. Meanwhile, the price of Vietnamese Ganoderma ranges from 300,000 to 1 million VND/kg.
In particular, Korean lingzhi costs 1.5-2.5 million VND/kg. According to Mr. Trong, there are many cases where sellers advertise "natural lingzhi mushrooms" to increase the value, but in reality, the amount of natural mushrooms is not much.
Many experts in the bird's nest industry assert that consumers are being deceived even when buying bird's nests "with feathers and bird's nest droppings" due to sophisticated counterfeiting technology by fraudulent traders.
Regarding bird’s nest products being sold widely on the market claiming to be “Khanh Hoa bird’s nest”, a representative of Khanh Hoa Bird’s Nest Company Limited confirmed that these are fake products. “We have and publish a full list of agents and distributors on the company’s website.
Therefore, products without packaging and without a stated origin are not the company's products," he said.
According to the HCM City Market Management Department, since the beginning of 2012, this agency has discovered nearly 30 violations in the business of imported ginseng products, lingzhi mushrooms, dried products of all kinds... with more than 11 tons of products seized due to lack of invoices or documents of origin.
Of which, imported ginseng and lingzhi products alone amounted to about 1 ton, with violations such as smuggling, no or fake origin, no Vietnamese sub-labels...
According to tuoitre - VP