Rapid integrated assessment on food safety related to pork consumers in Hung Yen and Nghe An provinces

Pork makes up 75% of meat consumed in Vietnam. However, pork contains high levels of pathogens, an issue of growing concern among the public. Therefore, we developed a rapid integrated assessment tool to understand awareness and habits of pork consumers and assess food safety through the following indices: water holding capacity (WHC), pH, total bacterial count and coliform counts. This was a cross-sectional study combining qualitative and quantitative methods in Hung Yen and Nghe An provinces from December 2012 to May 2013. A total of 252 people were interviewed in focus group dicussions. In addition, 40 pork meat samples from slaughterhouses, 40 swab samples and 40 pork meat samples from markets were analysed. Meat was bought mainly from the informal market and quickly prepared, cooked and consumed. The main concerns were growth promoters, pork refresher (chemicals used to make stale pork appear fresh) as well as diseased pork. There was little knowledge on zoonotic diseases. The values of WHC and pH were within the allowable range according to Vietnamese food quality standards, whereas total bacterial counts and coliform counts were out of the permitted range (65% and 97.5%, respectively). The study findings may offer some insights for further research on how to address consumer concerns over microbial and chemical contamination of pork