A large workshop in Dak Lak Province has been shut down for making instant coffee from corn, soya bean flours and chemicals.
Unhygienic equipmen
According to the Dak Lak Agro-Foretry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department, the facility did not have business license. Using substandard equipment and ingredients, it churned out up to one tonne of instant coffee a month. Most of the coffee was sold to other business in surrounding provinces under different brand names.
During the inspection, the authorities did not find any coffee beans, only corn, soy bean and some unidentified chemicals. Corn and soy beans were ground to make the ‘coffee powder, and other chemicals added to produce flavour and foam. The facility’s owner admitted that he did not know exactly what the chemicals were.
Tran Ngoc Thanh, head of the department, said, “We gave a warnings to this facility in early 2014 but they went unheeded. We have suspended operations of the facility and seized 100kg of instant coffee, branded as Nhat Thien Coffee.”
An ex-employee said he quit because he felt it was not right. He went on to say that it is actually more complicated to produce fake coffee powder that the real coffee. “No matter how minimal the danger of those chemicals are, overexposure to them must still be bad,” he said.
The leader of a large coffee company in Dak Lak said their products are for export and contain 80% coffee. They could not compete with other domestic products because of the prices.
Samples from the seized materials have been sent for testing at the Central Highlands Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. The case will be referred to police if no coffee substance is found.
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