After pork, vegetables have become the second food in Ho Chi Minh City to have their origin made traceable via a simple QR scan.

The first batch of traceable greens will hit selected Ho Chi Minh City supermarkets on Wednesday, with a full-scale rollout expected in April.

The program is the second of its kind launched by the municipal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), with the origin of pork sold in the city’s markets and supermarkets made traceable since January.

Since January 1, city residents have been able to check the origin and journey of their pork by installing a free mobile application able to scan a QR-coded label on the pork’s package.

Similar origin traceability will be made available for vegetables starting tomorrow, according to Huynh Thi Kim Cuc, deputy director of DARD.

Cuc said customers could use any QR code scanner available on their smartphones to scan the one-time label on any package of vegetables under the program, which will provide them with all the necessary information regarding the produce.

This information includes the vegetables' name; where and when they were grown, when they were packaged and distributed; as well as a list of any pesticides and fertilizers used.

A worker puts a QR-coded label on a package of bitter melons in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The program will be piloted at selected supermarkets until the end of March, before a full-scale rollout to all VietGAP-certified cooperatives in the city, Cuc said.

VietGAP, or Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practice, is a local agricultural production safety program aimed at setting standards for the production of clean and safe farm produce.

As many as one million metric tons of vegetables are consumed in Ho Chi Minh City per annum, around 24 percent of which is produced locally with the rest provided by farms in other provinces, according to DARD director Nguyen Phuoc Trung.

The introduction of a food origin tracing program is the inevitable result of the need to improve customers’ trust in the city’s food safety, Trung said.

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