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In Vietnam, firms found buying buffalo meat to sell as beef

In Vietnam, firms found buying buffalo meat to sell as beef

Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 13:48 GMT+7

A number of workers and consumers in Hanoi might have eaten buffalo meat thinking they were enjoying beef steak as a local company was Monday fined over a meat sale scam.

>> An audio version of the story is available here

A civil penalty of VND105 million (US$4,893) was slapped on the Bac Ha Co., a branch of the Hanoi Agriculture Investment and Development Co., on charges of “making fake products,” said Le Viet Phuong, deputy head of the market surveillance team No.14.

The team raided the warehouse of Bac Ha, and discovered that the company had purchased 12.6 tonnes of frozen buffalo meat from Ho Chi Minh City-based Thien But Co. Ltd. and distributed 117.5kg of it as beef, according to the official.

Bac Ha Co. printed labels in Vietnamese saying the products were beef, and altered the quarantine certificate for the meat, before selling it at only VND121,000 ($5.6) a kg.

Beef fetched around VND240,000-260,000 ($11.2-12.2) a kg depending on the part on Monday.

The company also had to return profits it earned from selling the fake beef, according to officers.

Phuong said hundreds of thousands of tonnes of buffalo meat are imported into Vietnam on an annual basis, according to customs data, but few products are found on the market.

“This has prompted the national steering board on fighting fake and contraband products to ask its units to inspect imports of frozen buffalo meat,” he added.

In the latest check, Hanoi market watchdog officers found Tan Dai Duong Co. importing 47.8 tonnes of frozen buffalo meat from India and subsequently selling it under the guise of beef to 14 businesses citywide.

But no butchers have been found selling the fake beef, according to officials.

The buffalo meat was in fact transported directly to industrial parks to be made into beef dishes for workers there.

The Thien Ha Shidax Co. Ltd., which supplies lunches for Canon Vietnam Co. Ltd., has been found buying 22kg of ‘beef’ from Bac Ha Co.

Samples of the ‘beef’ were taken for tests, whose results show that the meat does not meet food safety standards, according to officers.

Ba Sao Co., a meal supplier for Hoya Glass Disk Co., also sourced 72kg of the fake beef from Bac Ha Co. and had to destroy the meat after being told by market watchdog officers that it was in fact buffalo meat.

The two meal suppliers, however, were not penalized as they were unaware of the real origin of the meat.

Market surveillance officers also said it is not possible to rule out that the fake beef was sent to small markets across Hanoi to avoid detection.

Consumers thus face health risks as buffalo meat can easily become tainted if stored inappropriately, officers warned.

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