Vietnamese consumers say "no" to dubious milk products

By Nguyen Thi Ngoc Ha

HANOI, March 15 (Chinese media) -- "I do not care about the prices of powder milk but milk quality has now become my first and most important criteria", said a 29-year-old Vietnamese woman, Pham Thu Trang while looking for a credible milk brand name for her little girl in a supermarket in the capital of Hanoi on Sunday.

What Trang cares for the quality of milk was triggered from a scandal of the protein-deficient milk both domestically-made and imported which can be seen on every Vietnamese newspaper this time.

The scandal was spotted out when the department of competitiveness management under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade carried out inspection over milk products of all kind last month in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city.

According to the results from the inspection of about 100 milk products for children in Ho Chi Minh city, false labeling of protein content in milk products showed protein content much lower from one to 30 times compared with the actual percentage, and less than 2 percent compared with the standard of between 11 and 15 percent set by the World Health Organization.

After the dubious milk products were made public, local consumers have become very anxious about choosing dairy items for their children. "Now I myself do not know which kind of powder milk to be trusted for purchasing", said a Vietnamese young mother.

Our customers, mainly mothers, have even brought with them the list of products to avoid when shopping, said Nguyen Thu Hien, a local milk vendor in Hanoi.

In fear of losing customers, local milk vendors and supermarkets have moved milk products of false protein content out of their shelves, withdrawn the blacklisted products from circulation and also asked their milk suppliers to send back the test results of their products within 10 days.

For children who have milk as main food, drinking low-protein milk products is like drinking sugar-added water, affecting the immune systems such as oedema, deterioration of liver, heart and kidney, said health insiders.

Meanwhile, about 41 percent of Vietnamese customers responded as "No idea" when being asked about the customer rights. The rest said "powerless even we know the rights", according to a recent survey by the Vietnamese Association of Standards and Customer Rights Protection.

Regarding food safety and hygiene, 88 percent of Vietnamese, when being asked, said that they could not distinguish safe food by eyes, said the survey.

Vietnam launched the campaign to stop the marketing of unhealthy food and drinks to children under the age of 16 on The World Consumer Rights Day 2009, which is the same with last year’s campaign. Does the wave of this year campaign have enough power to create any strike to the country's consciousness and culture of consumer goods trading to the aim of protecting rights for local people?

While waiting for the answer, Vietnamese consumers are first looking for a Vietnamese Bill on Customers Rights Protection which is on the stage of compilation and expected to be approved in 2010 to count their lives on.