Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, Deputy Chief of the Market Management Division of Ho Chi Minh City, said that during the Mid-Autumn Festival peak season, the market management force focuses on closely monitoring mooncakes, from origin and source to food hygiene and safety.
According to Mr. Huy, this is the industry’s key task, as the mooncake market annually faces a situation where quality and origin are difficult to control. Many cakes are labeled as imported but are actually low-quality, or even counterfeit and commercially fraudulent.
Not to mention, in recent years, “homemade” cakes have been rampant online, with prices and quality uncontrolled and unregulated.
Mooncakes are a group of foods that are tightly controlled during the food safety inspection peak in September. (Illustrative image)
Smuggled mooncakes with fraudulent origins not only make it difficult for reputable domestic manufacturers but also pose potential health risks to consumers.
Each Mid-Autumn Festival, the market sees the appearance of selling points advertising imported cakes from Malaysia and China at low prices. Buyers, attracted by eye-catching designs and low prices, easily fall into the trap, making it challenging for authorities to thoroughly handle this situation.
“Illegal and untraceable sellers disregard the law and accept fines to continue their illicit activities. During inspections, we encounter not only large-scale sellers who take risks for profits but also small-scale sellers, including students who pool money to sell mooncakes seasonally. This situation is challenging for authorities to manage,” Mr. Huy said.
At the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade’s third-quarter press conference on August 21, Mr. Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, Deputy Director, announced that in September, the Department of Industry and Trade, in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Department, launched the “Tick Blue Responsibility” month.
Mooncakes were chosen as the flagship product to be labeled with the “tick blue” – an identification mark for safe and quality products distributed in supermarkets and e-commerce platforms. This approach helps distributors filter and sell only standard mooncakes while preventing the proliferation of smuggled and low-quality cakes in the market.
The program is not only organized in modern distribution systems but also extended to facilities and households producing and trading mooncakes in Ho Chi Minh City. It covers both traditional and online sales channels, even those advertising “homemade” cakes, forming a tight chain in quality control to ensure consumers’ rights and health.
Starting with mooncakes, this pilot model is expected to be applied to gift baskets and foods for the Lunar New Year holiday in 2026.
Milk, bird’s nest, functional foods, and cosmetics are also groups of products that are strictly inspected during the year-end period.
In addition to focusing on inspecting mooncakes, the Ho Chi Minh City Market Management leader also announced that they would conduct specialized inspections of two groups of goods: milk and bird’s nest products.
These are highly sensitive and concerned product groups, as the market has continuously discovered fake milk and low-quality bird’s nest products sold at low prices, causing difficulties for reputable bird’s nest businesses due to consumers’ fears of counterfeits.
Ho Chi Minh City’s market management force has also started implementing solutions to ensure a balanced supply and demand and stabilize the market at the end of 2025 and the Lunar New Year in 2026. Simultaneously, they are intensifying efforts to combat smuggling, commercial fraud, and counterfeiting in the final months of 2025 and before, during, and after the Lunar New Year.
The agency particularly focuses on inspecting organizations and individuals producing, trading, and storing counterfeit and substandard goods in industrial parks and e-commerce platforms. At the same time, they organize households and businesses to sign a commitment not to trade in counterfeit, smuggled, or substandard goods and strictly handle those who violate the commitment.
In the first eight months of 2025, Ho Chi Minh City’s market management force inspected and handled 659 cases of violations related to counterfeiting, smuggling, and substandard goods, confiscating over 600,000 units of violating products, with a fine of over VND 14.3 billion.
Among them were many serious cases with a large number of exhibits, including food, cosmetics, and health supplements directly affecting health. Notably, 13 cases with criminal signs have been transferred to investigative authorities.
“Tick Blue Responsibility” is the abbreviated name for the Commodity Quality Control Program in Ho Chi Minh City. It aims to promote the sustainable production and trading of safe and sustainable food to better meet consumers’ needs and protect their health.
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