Supplement food market uncontrolled in VN, prices vary wildly

There are 10,930 functional food products available in the market

Le Thi Phuong, 34, in Tan Binh district, HCM City, was happy when an acquaintance of hers recommended a functional food product advertised as a ‘panacea’. She immediately went to the drugstore to buy a bottle of nanocalcium syrup.

The major elements of the syrup are calcium under nanomode, vitamin D and other vitamins that help improve children’s height and weight.

Phuong’s 2-year-old boy is taking a lot of functional food products daily, including Super Growth High, Grow Plus and Nubest Tall advertised as helping to increase height by 4-10 cm after a short time.

Phuong said that all these products are safe and good, because they are all imports and expensive.

In HCM City, functional foods are sold everywhere, from drugstores, traditional medicine shops, supermarkets to online shops. There are hundreds of products, from weight loss tea and herbal tea to nutrition powder, which are advertised to treat many kinds of diseases, from blood pressure to gout, diabetes and arthritis.

Ordering functional food products from personal websites, forums and social networks is favored by office workers. However, the prices quoted vary. On shopee.vn, a box of Glucosamine 1500 mg sourced from Japan quoted the price at VND489,000. Meanwhile, lazada.vn quotes VND799,000 and hangxachtaynhat VND1.2 million.

According to the Vietnam Functional Food Association, in 2000, there were 63 functional food products imported to Vietnam by 13 companies.

Now, there are 10,930 products available in the market, manufactured and distributed by 4,190 establishments. More than 90% drugstores throughout the country sell functional food.

A local newspaper reported that more than 90% of dietary supplement producers in Vietnam have not implemented Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

The lightening speed development of the functional food market has made it more difficult to control the market. The police recently discovered a series of counterfeit functional food product distribution and sales.

The counterfeiters had modern equipment to pack and label products to make them look just like genuine products.

According to Nguyen Cong San, deputy head of the Hanoi Market Management Sub-department, one of the tricks that traders use is to buy Chinese products at low prices and then label and sell them as imports from the US, Japan and Australia at prices much higher than the real value.