Poster by Delia Grace, Sinh Dang-Xuan, Hung Nguyen-Viet, Florence Mutua and Fred Unger presented at the SafePork Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, 15-17 May 2023.

1. 3s-FSPT: A new tool for rapid assessment of food safety
performance and identification of interventions applied
to pork value chains in Vietnam
Delia Grace2,3, Dang Xuan Sinh1, Hung Nguyen-Viet3, Florence Mutua3, Fred Unger1
1 International Livestock Research Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam
2 Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Kent ME4 4TB, United Kingdom
3 International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
Background
Food safety is an emerging public health problem globally,
including Vietnam. The International Livestock Research
Institution (ILRI) and partners have been working for a decade in
pork value chains in Vietnam, where pork is mainly produced and
slaughtered by the small-scale sector and sold through
traditional/wet market outlets, though modern retail outlets
steadily grow in numbers. In addition, emphasis on food safety in
developing countries’ context has been shifted from risk
assessment to risk management and risk communication. Thus,
we developed a comparative tool aimed to assess food safety
performance in different pork value chains and identifying
opportunities for improving health outcomes.
Methods
The 3S-FSPT has three pillars: safety (1), scalability (2), and
societal concerns (3).
The tool was used in identified key pork value chains of
northern Vietnam (modern/traditional/street food and
canteens).
Pictures
Conclusions
The 3S-FSPT tool is a promising, practicable and low-cost way
of measuring and promoting food safety in value chains. It
can be used to develop a baseline, benchmark across value
chains, identify interventions and measure progress.
However, additional refinement and piloting is needed and is
under development in Malawi and eastern Africa.
Pork value chains surveyed
Fred Unger
f.unger@cgiar.org ● Hanoi, Vietnam ● +84 24 32373995 ● ilri.org
This project was funded by ACIAR and CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition
and Health (A4NH)
This document is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
May 2023.
15-17 May 2023
Results
We piloted the Food Safety Performance Tool (FSPT) across
identified pork value chains of importance using a probabilistic
sampling design focusing on retail and food supplier only. This
included modern retail (supermarket, convenience stores, and
high-end food stores), traditional retail (traditional and wet
markets) and food suppliers (canteens and street food vendors). To
assess Safety (pillar 1) biological sampling for a food safety hazard
(Salmonella), hygienic proxy (coliforms) and observations was
performed; Scalability (pillar 2) was accessed through criteria such
as market share/trends of business, trust of value chain actors and
potential for predefined interventions. Societal norms (pillar 3)
emphasized on gender and equity aspects across all pillars.
Key findings from the applied tool include:
−Poor food safety outcomes across all retail types
−Consumers incorrectly perceive chemical hazards as more
important than microbiological ones
−Traditional markets and slaughter will continue to provide most
pork
−Overall food safety trust levels on food safety decrease from
rural to urban areas and along the value chain
−Women also worry more about foodborne disease than men.
−Men more in favour of technical interventions than women
The tool was easy to apply, rapid and provided information and
considered accurate and actionable by evaluators. The cost was
around 45 USD per sample for sampling and one biological
analysis, 20 USD per key informant interview and 100 USD per
focus group discussion. The total cost was around 6,000 USD to
evaluate one value chain. ILRI thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.