Vietnam SPS Office are waiting for a reply from the UK side in relation to a report that some British supermarkets have stopped selling Vietnamese dragon fruits due to pesticide residue concerns, an office official said.

Ngo Xuan Nam, deputy director of the Vietnam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point (Vietnam SPS Office), told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Monday that the office has sent a dispatch to a British sanitary and phytosanitary agency, asking to jointly deal with the aforementioned issue.

A number of British outlets have ceased the sale of dragon fruits imported from Vietnam amid concerns that such fruits might contain pesticide residues, which pose potential health risks to consumers, Nam elaborated.

At the same time, the report also said UK authorities are proposing moving Vietnamese dragon fruits from Appendix II (for products subject to being tested and granted a food safety certificate in exporting countries before being exported) to Appendix I (for products that must be verified and re-inspected at a 50 percent frequency at destination ports before being imported). 

The Vietnam SPS Office has therefore made two proposals in its message to the UK side to deal with the situation, the official stated.

The office has firstly recommended the UK side maintain the current 20 percent inspection frequency for Vietnamese dragon fruits until both sides have already clarified the facts about the potential pesticide residue issue.

Secondly, the office has requested the UK provide it with all health risk assessment reports relating to Vietnamese dragon fruits for consideration.

“However, after more than a month of issuing the dispatch, the Vietnam SPS Office is still waiting for a reply from the UK side,” Nam told Tuoi Tre.

In the period from 2020 to July 2023, Vietnamese businesses shipped about 625 metric tons of fresh and frozen dragon fruits to the UK, according to the Plant Protection Department under Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

To date, the Vietnam SPS Office has yet to receive any notice of violations related to dragon fruits exported to the UK, Nam affirmed.  

Vietnamese businesses export about 2,000 metric tons of dragon fruits to the EU market yearly, he added.

In a related development, Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper on Sunday cited the Vietnamese Trade Office in the UK as confirming that a number of supermarkets in the kingdom have shifted to selling dragon fruits imported from Spain or Cambodia after detecting pesticide residues on those imported from Vietnam.  

The UK’s Food Standard Agency has evidence of Vietnamese dragon fruits containing pesticide residues that pose a potential health risk to consumers, the trade office added.   

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