Wine poisoning, mainly caused by the use of products with unclear origins, is a major public concern now. Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Dr Nguyen Van Viet, President of Vietnam Beverage Association (VBA), on this issue. Luu Hiep reports.
Dr Nguyen Van Viet said many Vietnamese people drink liquor and beer. Branded liquors, both domestic and imported, are widely used in only cities and by high-income people. The remainder, mostly living in the countryside, drink alcohols manually and simply brewed by very small breweries, usually in a household scale. According to statistics, traditional wine-brewing villages include Lang Van (Bac Ninh province) and Vo Xa (Quang Ninh district, Quang Binh province). A village can produce up to 5,000-7,000 litres a day. Drinkers prefer traditional alcohol because it is cheaper and they are familiar with it.
Quality of liquor produced by most traditional villages is not properly controlled. As the head of the Vietnam Beverage Association, what is your opinion about this?
What concerns us now is manually brewed wine is mostly free from quality control and is prone to potential health risks to drinkers. According to research data, the content of toxins in manually brewed alcohol is hundreds or even thousands of times higher than that of standard factories. For example, the content acetic acid and acetic aldehyde in manually produced liquor is 1,400 and l,235 mg a litre, respectively, while it is only under 20 mg a litre in standard breweries. Besides, alcohol wastes, especially from cassava wine production, affect the surroundings. The use of homemade wine which is rampant and lack of expertise quality control has left considerable harm to the health of users as well as to the environment.
Many villages have standardised production processes. Good brands have secured a strong foothold on the market. Meanwhile, bad quality ones are being gradually pushed out of the market. The quality of traditional liquors must be raised to the grade of Maotai (China) or Sake (Japan). It must be closely controlled to ensure the social health.
To better to control traditional alcohol quality, does the association have any solutions and recommendations?
In fact, the restriction or elimination of homemade liquor is almost impossible. We need effective policies to tighten the quality control to preserve the existence of traditional wine villages, protect the health of drinkers as well as the environment and create the basis for sustainable development. In addition, market watchdogs must strengthen liquor quality control and strictly deal with violating brewers and illicit producers, raise public awareness of quality products and proper consumption of alcoholic drinks. Last but not least, local authorities necessarily support traditional wine-producing villages to follow modern production methods like through cooperatives. This will enable authorities to manage liquor production more easily and effectively. Many traditional wines have favourite brands of domestic investors.
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