The identity of the unsanitary noodle shop will be revealed.

On the morning of July 25th, leaders of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade announced that they are reviewing all noodle production facilities in the city and will soon announce the names of those producing "dirty" noodles.

At this morning's meeting between the Department of Industry and Trade, the Department of Health, and the Ho Chi Minh City Consumer Rights Protection Association, Ms. Le Ngoc Dao, Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade, stated that immediately after media reports about rice noodles contaminated with the brightening agent tinopal, the Department instructed all districts and communes to review the production of rice noodles and other related food products.

This move aims to control the production and sale of rice noodles in Ho Chi Minh City, while also helping consumers avoid anxiety about mistakenly buying noodles containing banned substances harmful to their health.

Following reports of fresh rice noodles being contaminated with tinopal, many housewives are worried and hesitant to buy noodles for fear of contamination with the banned substance. Photo: Thien Chuong.

"We will soon compile the inspection results and announce the businesses and production facilities that sell and produce rice noodles contaminated with banned substances and that do not meet food safety and hygiene standards," Ms. Dao said.

According to the deputy director of the Department of Industry and Trade, Ho Chi Minh City has approximately 400 establishments producing vermicelli and similar products such as rice noodles and other types of noodles. Since December 2012, when the function of inspecting food safety and hygiene was transferred from the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Sub-Department to the Department of Industry and Trade, the Department has not detected any products in violation.

Ms. Dao also added that previously, the substances banned from testing for rice noodles were borax and formaldehyde.Noodle brightening agentTinopal, as detected in samples by the Center for Consumer Research and Consulting (Vietnam Consumer Protection Standards Association), is the first of its kind to be found. During this testing period, tinopal was officially included in the list of substances subject to inspection.

Mr. Huynh Le Thai Hoa, Head of the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Department, stated that the samples found to be contaminated with tinopal were isolated incidents and not sufficient grounds to conclude that all types of rice noodles are contaminated. "These are just samples we took from rice noodle stalls in small markets. Products sold in official stores or supermarkets are managed under strict procedures, so they cannot be contaminated with banned substances," Mr. Hoa said.

Mr. Tran Vinh Nhung, deputy director of the Department of Industry and Trade, stated that the Consumer Research and Consulting Center's unilateral announcement of the results regarding tinopal contamination in rice noodles and the names of businesses selling these products was contrary to the law. The center had no right to make such an announcement without first submitting the survey results to a higher-level state management agency.

The head of the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Department stated that the survey samples are only valid when the sampling procedure is followed correctly. The person taking the samples must be trained and certified. The samples must be confirmed by the owner of the production facility or the business owner of the product. If necessary, both the person taking the samples and the product owner should go to the testing facility together to ensure the samples are not tampered with.

Representatives from Big C and Saigon Co.op supermarkets – which were recently named by the Center for Consumer Research and Consulting as selling rice noodles contaminated with tinopal – stated that this information is inaccurate. The evidence these supermarkets presented is that at the same time the center unilaterally took samples for testing, these supermarkets also took samples for testing, and the results did not detect tinopal.

On July 22nd, the Center for Consumer Research and Consulting announced that 24 out of 30 samples of fresh rice noodles, pho noodles, banh canh noodles, banh cuon noodles, banh uot noodles, and banh hoi noodles that they collected from the market were contaminated with the optical whitening agent tinopal. The equipment used by the center to identify tinopal was a ultraviolet lamp at a wavelength of approximately 366 nm.

On July 23, the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Department also announced the discovery of seven randomly selected samples of fresh rice noodles from small markets that were contaminated with this substance. However, due to the small number of samples, these are only for reference and to be used for further inspections, and it is not yet possible to assess the overall situation.

According to VnExpress - TH