Milk companies have been changing their labeling for children's formula in such a way that would make them exempt from the new taxes levied by the Ministry of Finance to put an end to price-gouging in the industry.
Children formula milk is labelled as nutritional product
A number of brands, including Pediasure and Dielac Pedia have been using new labels for the same nutritional formulas they were selling before.
Recently, dairy products were made subject to government control, but food supplements and nutritional products are not. After the ministry created regulations to control the overpricing of milk products, especially those marketed for children, the companies printed that their products contained a lower percentage of milk, technically qualifying them as supplements instead of milk products.
Grow Plus, a brand produced by NutiFood, markets dairy products both in liquid and dry form, While their dry product is still sold as "milk formula" their liquid canisters have changed. It is now called a "nutritional supplement" for one to three-year-old children.
Dr Vu Dinh Anh, deputy head of Institute for Research on Market and Price said, "The regulations contain many loopholes. In the next six moths, it looks as if companies will re-brand their products just by adjusting the labels."
In response, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health decided to subject nutritional products and supplements to the same price stabilisation policies. The ministries will put ceiling on wholesale distribution prices for these products. However, many consumers have expressed worry over the authorities' ability to manage and control prices of children's formula on the real market.
Last year, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health were jointly blamed for inordinately high prices of imported milk products. According to statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the import price is only USD4-5, but the retail prices reach as high as USD20-43.