Dr Brian Bedard has more than 35 years of experience working for international programmes on food safety, veterinary epidemiology and sustainable agriculture. VNS Photo Kiều Trinh

Local and international partnerships are one of the measures Việt Nam is taking to improve food safety for consumers amid increasing risks of foodborne diseases in recent years. Việt Nam News reporter Nhật Hồng spoke to Dr Brian Bedard, food safety and risk assessment specialist for the Canada-funded project Safe Food for Growth (SAFEGRO), which works with Vietnamese authorities to enhance the locals’ access to safe and competitive agri-food products.

From your observations, what are some of the most pressing food safety concerns in Việt Nam today, and what role does SAFEGRO play in addressing them?

SAFEGRO is a project funded by Global Affairs Canada (under the Government of Canada) and Alinea International - the development consultancy that I work for that is implementing the project - together with Việt Nam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

One of the things we are trying to share is our international experience with Vietnamese counterparts and how we can share modern practices to help Việt Nam ensure food safety - not only domestically but also for export purposes. Việt Nam is becoming more and more important for international trade, and food safety is an important requirement in that area. What we want to do is share our experience, not only from Canada, but other countries around the world.

Some of the challenges that we have encountered [in SAFEGRO] are particularly around the markets - the retail markets and the wholesale markets, and the need to ensure that the food that is coming off the farm and from producers is safe.

This is the difficult part - it starts down on the farm, ensuring that the farmers are following good agricultural practices, ensuring that they are minimising the use of pesticides and herbicides, using safe water, to ensure that at least the food that they are bringing into the marketplace is safe to begin with, and then how that is handled in terms of processing, and distribution to consumers.

We are working with our government partners, with food producers, processors and manufacturers, with restaurants, schools and others who prepare the food. We are looking at where the critical risk areas are to help the government of Việt Nam put programmes, rules and regulations in place, and more importantly, to enforce those regulations.

We want to be able to share experiences and how we collaborate with other countries, so that Việt Nam can continue to be an important trading partner in this area. Not only Canada, but many donors have been working in Việt Nam to help the Vietnamese government identify what the challenges are, and what the opportunities are as well.

How do Việt Nam’s food safety policies and regulations align with international standards, and what activities are being carried out by SAFEGRO for improvements in this aspect?

One of the first things we did was a regulatory and policy review along with other donors to identify where the regulations were lacking and where there were gaps. Then, we work with the government of Việt Nam to address those - what regulations are needed, and what the standards that need to be applied are, in terms of the marketplace, laboratories and other value chain actors. We are working in a number of areas to help the government of Việt Nam to put regulations in place that are practical and can be enforced.

Exporters must be compliant with international standards to access overseas markets. Therefore, exporters are very aware of what the requirements are in other countries and internationally to ensure that they can export, and they tend to be very good at that compliance.

The big issue, however, is how to ensure food safety for domestic consumers in Việt Nam. Việt Nam has put in several good laws and regulations that align with international standards, but like other countries, they are very difficult to enforce.

Việt Nam, for example, is working on a new food safety law that looks like it will be very aligned with international standards. But then the question becomes ‘How do you enforce that?’ - and that is difficult, even in Canada at times.

The biggest challenge is not to get the laws right, but how you enforce those and make sure that the companies, the farmers, food services and everybody along the value chain comply with the regulations and the requirements.

Việt Nam has seen several outbreaks of foodborne diseases in recent years. What are the main causes of these outbreaks, and what can the public do to protect themselves?

What we see with these outbreaks, although we will not delve into specifics, is that they are primarily bacterial infections. They are not, for the most part, pesticides, herbicides or chemical contamination but rather contamination with bacteria.

This usually comes from poor hygiene, poor food handling without washing their hands, using clean surfaces, and sanitising or disinfecting their equipment and utensils, which occur not only in stores or food stalls but also in food service kitchens and home preparation.

Better separation of food using better hygienic practices can go a long way to reducing bacterial contaminants, which have been the main cause of most of the outbreaks that we have seen in Việt Nam.

Preschool children in Thanh Oai District, Hà Nội, learn about food safety practices, as part of an educational programme implemented by SAFEGRO. Photo courtesy of SAFEGRO

What role does education play in improving food safety and how can people be better informed about the quality of the food they consume?

We tend to think about the technical areas of laboratories and testing when we mention improvements in food safety, whereas really good food safety practices begin with the individual in your own behaviours - not only at home and how you are preparing your food, but also disciplined behaviours in factories and in food processing within restaurants, and food service commercial kitchens and schools. The way you ensure those behaviours is through education, communication and awareness raising.

We start with kindergartens, with experiential learning programmes in Hà Nội’s Thanh Oai District and elsewhere, where students learn through play. Then, we find the students actually go home and share those experiences and what they learned with other members of their family.

The other thing we are doing around education is bringing an international curriculum for undergraduate students at the universities, which is really important, because those are the future employees in not only the government but also the private sector and companies - this is training the workforce. Then, the other aspect of education is in-service training for people that are already working. We are also trying to do more e-learning and help people who handle food understand that what they do or don’t do can make people healthy or sick.

Based on your experience working in international programmes, what communication strategies can Việt Nam adopt and adapt to improve people’s awareness and practices regarding food safety?

One of the things that we have learned is that, in terms of ensuring safe food, communication is really one of the most important aspects. It is necessary to ensure that communication is transparent, and that consumers understand what makes their food safe, what food is safe, and where they can buy and how they can prepare safe food.

More importantly, when there is an outbreak, as mentioned earlier, we should have a system in place to make sure that the consumers are aware that there are these risks with a particular food product and whether the food product needs to be recalled.

In Canada, for example, we have a very strong system around educating consumers - through social media, TV and more - to make sure that consumers are well aware of what the food safety risks are, particularly if there is an outbreak of some kind and there needs to be a recall. Therefore, we are trying to share some of the things we do in Canada.

These are always a little different because of the cultural variations here in Việt Nam, but we think that the Vietnamese have a very good handle on what it takes now to communicate with consumers.

In addition, we are seeing that the government institutions that have a responsibility for food safety take on a more proactive role around what needs to be done.

For example, the Việt Nam Food Safety Risk Assessment Centre has recently been established under the Ministry of Health, which is unique as there are only a few of these around the world. Now you have one in Việt Nam, and it is becoming well-recognised. We are also promoting the concept of a more integrated national food safety management system with inter-ministerial collaboration similar to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

For me, it is exciting to see our governments partnering in agriculture, health and trade, and taking on food safety as an important aspect of their role. VNS

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.