The production area does not ensure hygiene. VNA/VNS Photos

HÀ NỘI — A famous green sticky rice cake (bánh cốm) brand in Hà Nội has been ordered to suspend its operations due to food safety violations.

The city’s food safety inspectors checked the Nguyên Ninh green sticky rice cake production facility at 11 Hàng Than Street, Ba Đình District on Thursday and found that the production area is not separated, but instead is located within the household’s kitchen with seriously degraded conditions.

Inside the production area, there are also clothes being washed and dried.

Tools for preparing and processing ingredients are dirty, due to lack of regular cleaning, while the toilet is located directly in the preparation and processing area.

Insects and animal faeces were also found in the production area.

The cake production area is located within a small household kitchen.

The facility does not have a warehouse, so bags of dried rice are stacked at the entrance to the kitchen, near a mouldy wall area, Vietnam News Agency reported.

In addition, the facility failed to present health certificates and any confirmation of food safety training for the owner and five employees.

Neither has it presented documents proving the origin of all raw materials, food additives and packaging.

Furthermore the label of the green sticky rice cake product was found to be inconsistent with any product declaration and did not meet the current regulations on notices on goods.

The inspection team requested that the facility to temporarily suspend operations and assigned the Steering Committee for Food Safety of Ba Đình District to handle the violations and report the results to the inspection team before January 10.

They also took away two samples of green sticky rice cake and xu xê (husband and wife) cake for testing. — VNS