MM Mega Market Vietnam to enhance quality control of pork products

MM Mega Market Vietnam tightens quality control to beat back recent outbreaks

Working with farmers to combat diseases at the farm

Since its launch in June 2017, the Dong Nai Pork Platform now supplies safe pork to MM stores in Central and South Vietnam. This transit facility is running in a process where close co-ordination with farmers is maintained and pig farming follows Vietnamese Good Animal Husbandry Practices (VietGAHP) standards and strictly controlled in a closed loop.

MM Mega Market is currently in partnership with nearly 400 farms in Dong Nai, providing the market with more than 250 tonnes of clean and safe pork a month.

In this time of prevalent outbreaks, Phidsanu Pongwatana, managing director, MM Mega Market Vietnam, said: “MM has maintained close communications with the Dong Nai Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, advocating farms to participate in the outbreak control training that is available. We have been working with the farmers on the ground to increase the frequency of disinfection for the farms and the workers, as well as to keep strangers away from the farms as much as possible to prevent the diseases from spreading. Importantly, our agricultural engineers have been with the farmers every step of the way to maintain strict control of the foods and drinks we give to the pigs.”

Furthermore, all the breeding farms in partnerships with MM are also being closely monitored by the local authorities, which has been a valuable source of training in farming procedures and animal health knowledge, as well as disease prevention and control.

The pigs being raised at the farms are all marked with traceability rings and put through urinal rapid tests to find any banned substance, and are visually checked for skin colour and overall physical condition before being slaughtered and taken to the market.

Strict process control from slaughterhouse to outlet

Not only being closely watched throughout the farming process, prior to being taken to the slaughterhouses, the pigs from participating farms must be clinically examined by veterinarians to be granted a health certificate and permission to go into slaughter.

At the post-slaughter stage, the vets continue to examine the pork quality, stamp the products, and issue a certificate for the batch. At the slaughterhouse, responsible personnel put seals on the trucks that carry the pork to the MM Mega Market system.

To keep the meat fresh, MM Mega Market Vietnam has made serious investments to put in use advanced equipment and specialised trucks.

At the pick-up points, MM quality control teams check the transport temperature by accessing the temperature log inside the specialised trucks to make sure the temperature remains at 2-4 degrees Celsius, and once again examine the quality of the pork before chopping up and taking the products to consumers.

Every pork product on sale at MM stores comes with a QR code stamp for traceability for origin, allowing buyers to easily check the information on the originating farm, standards applied, and slaughter date, among others, just by a click on their smartphones.

Currently a supplier of more than a million HORECA customers (hotels, restaurants, canteens), Phidsanu said confidently: “Food quality and safety remains our top priority when we serve our customers. MM Mega Market’s fresh food quality has been firmly established after a decade of doing business in Vietnam.

Our food platforms, including our pork platform, also have capable farm engineers sent to the farms to provide advice and guidance to make sure that the quality of the products not only match VietGAHP standard, but also MM Mega Market's own standards."

One of the frontrunners in growing and developing the value chain-based farming model, MM’s Dong Nai Pork Platform is a joint operation with LIFSAP (Livestock Competitiveness and Food Safety Project, World Bank) and farmers.

This value chain model is under strict control from the farm to the slaughterhouse and until the products are distributed to the market, offering consumers safe pork products, especially in the current outbreaks worrying buyers.