Tiếng Việt
Ho Chi Minh City, 03 July 2026
Authors: Bùi Minh Trí and Bùi Phạm Nhật Linh
Photo: Participants at the Ho Chi Minh City Consultation Workshop discussed preliminary findings on food loss in the tuna and pork value chains and shared practical feedback from enterprises, associations, and sector stakeholders.
On 03 July 2026, the Food Loss Assessment team continued its consultation process with a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City. Following the Hanoi workshop, the event provided another important opportunity to share preliminary findings on food loss in the tuna and pork value chains and to collect practical feedback from enterprises, associations, experts, and relevant stakeholders in the southern region.
The workshop was organized within the framework of the Strategic Sector Cooperation on Food Safety phase III between Viet Nam and Denmark. It brought together representatives from the Embassy of Denmark, the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, the Danish Veterinary, Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Agency, the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of International Cooperation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, IFRO, VAFIS, VNUA, and other partners. The Ho Chi Minh City event also welcomed representatives from Food Bank Vietnam, VISSAN, enterprises, professional associations, and practitioners working directly in the food and livestock sectors.
For the pork food loss component, Mr. Bùi Minh Trí and Ms. Bùi Phạm Nhật Linh participated in person, while Dr. Bùi Lê Vinh joined online and presented on behalf of the research team. As team leader, Dr. Bùi Lê Vinh shared the preliminary results of the upstream pork food loss assessment, focusing on pig production, transport/intermediary actors, and slaughterhouses.
The presentation summarized the evidence collected during the first phase of fieldwork. It showed that farm-level losses remain the clearest direct food-loss hotspot in the current dataset, especially through neonatal piglet mortality, scattered mortality, disease-related losses, and production shocks. At the same time, the team highlighted that transport and slaughter may involve less visible but economically important losses, such as live-weight shrinkage, stress, waiting time before slaughter, bruising, abscess trimming, downgraded meat, and rejected organs.
A key message of the presentation was the need to clearly distinguish between food loss, quality loss, economic loss, edible by-products, and unavoidable non-edible waste. In the pork chain, many by-products still have food and market value. Therefore, the assessment should focus on edible meat or organs that are discarded, downgraded, or lose value due to disease lesions, abscesses, bruising, or handling conditions.
Compared with the Hanoi workshop, the discussion in Ho Chi Minh City added strong practical perspectives from enterprises and southern stakeholders. Participants emphasized the importance of focusing the analysis on commercial fattening pigs, verifying technical information related to vaccination and medication practices, and separating results by farm scale, chain model, and slaughterhouse type. Enterprise representatives also highlighted the value of using operational data to validate field findings and strengthen the final assessment report.
The pork research team highly appreciated the constructive feedback from the participants. These inputs will help the team refine the interpretation of survey data, improve the classification of different loss types, and strengthen the second wave of data collection. The comments also provided useful guidance for developing more practical and policy-relevant recommendations for reducing food loss in the pork value chain.
The Ho Chi Minh City workshop concluded successfully and created an important space for dialogue between researchers, policy partners, enterprises, associations, and practitioners. Together with the Hanoi consultation, the workshop contributed to building a stronger evidence base for the Food Loss Assessment and for future efforts to reduce food loss in Viet Nam’s food systems.
Key messages
- The Ho Chi Minh City workshop strengthened the consultation process by bringing in practical perspectives from enterprises and southern stakeholders.
- The AGG/VNUA pork team presented preliminary evidence from the upstream pork chain, focusing on farm, transport, and slaughter.
- Participants emphasized the need to focus on commercial fattening pigs, verify technical information, and analyze results by scale and chain model.
- Feedback from the workshop will support the next phase of data collection and improve the final Food Loss Assessment report.