A total of 11 tons of bowels and 2 tons of legs at a warehouse in District 8, which stores products for dozens of household processors, were found to show signs of unhygienic conditions and expiration, according to official inspectors. Food safety regulations require fresh cattle and poultry products to be consumed within a day while frozen goods must be officially registered with local agencies. Officials from the city Animal Health Department said during the inspection that the products were to be supplied to restaurants but the owner of the goods said the bowels and legs had been bought to sell as crocodile feed. The owner, whose name has not been released, failed to produce any sale contracts or invoices. The products were stored in plastic boxes with no labels and no production or expiry dates. Many people who sell unclean animal intestines, heads and legs to restaurants in the city often claim they are using the products for animal feed when they are caught, said an official from the department. Bui Quang Anh, head of the Animal Health Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Thanh Nien in an interview in July that the department would ban the import of foods that are unusable in other countries. Anh spoke to Thanh Nien after the paper carried reports about goat penis shipments from Australia contaminated with bacteria. The imports were labeled inedible but sold locally as food.
