This Circular provides for food safety supervision of agro-aqua-forestry products sold in Vietnam under the management authority of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; and responsibilities of relevant entities for the food safety supervision prior to distribution to consumers. Agro-aqua-forestry products in this Circular include cereals, meat, products made of meat; fisheries and fishery products, vegetables, fruits and their products; eggs and egg products; honey and products made from honey; salt; spices; sugar, tea, coffee, Cacao, pepper; cashew nuts and other agro products sold at wholesale markets, agro-aqua-forestry markets, bulk purchasing and distributing facilities and other facilities trading agro-qua-forestry products

According to its provisions, any product shall undergo food safety supervision if it is: (i) warned by consumers, food safety authorities or competent authorities of importing countries; (ii) found failing to meet requirements for food safety by previous food safety inspection or supervision; (iii) a cause of mass food poisoning; and (iv) required by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and/or provincial departments of Agriculture and Rural Development.

After the testing result is announced, every supervising authority shall send a written notice of testing results and request the business facility having unsafe products to trace such unsafe product origin and recall all unsafe products, investigate causes of failure of safety and apply remedial measures for mitigating consequences and report them to the supervising authority. In case the business facility delays to submit their report on investigation and mitigation of unsafe product consequences, supervising authority shall submit a written request for handling of violations against the Law on Inspection to specialized inspecting authorities.

This Circular becomes effective since July 15, 2016 and replaces Circular No. 05/2010/TT-BNNPTNT dated January 22, 2010 and Circular No. 61/2012/TT-BNNPTNT dated November 13, 2012.