UK supermarkets halt Vietnamese dragon fruit sales due to pesticide residues
VOV.VN - The Vietnam Trade Office in the UK has reported that several British supermarkets have suspended selling Vietnamese dragon fruits after detecting pesticide residues in the product.
Many have switched to selling Spanish or Cambodian dragon fruits instead, the office added.
Authorities in the UK are also proposing bringing Vietnamese dragon fruits from Appendix II, when the products must be tested and granted a safety certification before being exported, to Appendix I, when the products must be verified and re-inspected by 50% at the port of destination before being allowed to circulate on the market.
Ngo Xuan Nam, deputy director of SPS Vietnam Office at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), shared that the office is asking the UK to provide risk assessment documents to change the frequency of food safety inspection of local dragon fruit products for consideration by competent Vietnamese authorities.
According to Nam, statistics released by the Plant Protection Department show that from 2020 to July 2023, Vietnam exported 193 shipments amounting to about 625 tonnes of fresh and frozen dragon fruits to the UK market.
He noted that the SPS Vietnam Office has yet to receive any violation notices from the UK so far.
Furthermore, recently the SPS Vietnam Office has continuously co-ordinated efforts with specialised agencies to organise training, give publicity, and offer timely updates of regulations on SPS to associations, businesses, cooperatives, and related parties to promptly adapt to market requirements and improve the quality of Vietnamese agricultural products.
The move aims to provide businesses and people with accurate information, avoid public confusion, and cause disadvantages for domestic agricultural production, especially organisations and individuals involved in production and packaging process.
Dragon fruit ranked first in terms of competitive advantage among 11 fruits, with the food item often in the group of products earning billions of US$. However, durian has replaced dragon fruit as the nation’s biggest fruit export item.
