Consultancy: Feasibility of meat decontamination in Vietnam

Background and rationale

Pork is the most widely consumed meat in Vietnam, accounting for close to 60% of meat intake, and the majority is produced and traded through small-scale, traditional value chains in which pigs are slaughtered on the floor. Microbiological contamination in this system is high and has persisted or increased over the past two decades. Over the past decade, hygiene- and behaviour-based interventions have been the main response, but impacts have been modest and poorly sustained.

This gap makes it urgent to investigate complementary technological approaches. Surface decontamination of carcasses using food-safe chemical agents (e.g., lactic acid, peracetic acid, hypochlorous acid) is complementary to other controls and widely used in other contexts including the United States, Canada, and Korea. However, to be effective in the Vietnamese context, such a measure must be acceptable to regulators, value-chain actors and consumers. Little is currently known about the current use and regulatory status of various decontamination agents, or the attitudes of local regulators and consumers toward these.

IFPRI seeks a consultant to help fill these gaps by (1) conducting a desk review and rapid field assessment of the effectiveness; current use, legal status, and appropriateness for the Vietnamese context of a range of candidate decontamination agents, (2) convening and summarizing the findings of an expert consultation to guide experimental testing of two decontamination agents, (3) assessing the acceptability of carcass decontamination among consumers, value chain actors, and regulators.

Scope and Activities

Activity 1: Desk review and rapid field assessment

The consultant will conduct a structured desk review, to an outline agreed with the research coordination team, to move from the broad list of candidate agents identified in preliminary scoping (organic acids; chlorine-based and oxidising agents; other chemical agents; physical and biological treatments) to a short-list of agents that are defensible in the Vietnamese regulatory and operational context. The review will:

• Review the applicable legal and regulatory framework, including food-safety legislation administered by the Vietnam Food Administration, veterinary legislation and the list of veterinary disinfectants permitted for circulation administered by the Department of Animal Health, national technical regulations and standards on fresh meat and on food additives and processing aids, and relevant international reference frameworks (EU, US FDA, Codex, and the approvals for slightly acidic electrolysed water).

• Review the domestic and international scientific literature on the efficacy of each candidate agent on red-meat carcasses and on meat-contact surfaces, recording the matrix tested, inoculation status, concentration, contact time, application method and reported log reduction, and distinguishing suspension tests from tests on meat.

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• Assess risks to food safety, to the environment, and to the occupational health and safety of slaughterhouse workers, including the residue and by-product profile (chlorate and perchlorate for chlorine-based agents; residual acidity and corrosion for organic acids) and the availability of a Material Safety Data Sheet for each product.

• Collect primary information through rapid interviews and short observation visits at 4-6 slaughterhouses, wet markets and processing or distribution enterprises, to verify what is used in practice. These visits are limited to non-sensitive descriptive information about chemical products and their use; no personal data are collected and no biological samples are taken. Verbal informed consent will be obtained.

• Appraise short-listed agents against a common set of criteria: demonstrated efficacy on meat, regulatory permissibility in Vietnam, commercial availability and verifiable product quality, cost per carcass, worker safety, ease of preparation and verification of the working concentration, compatibility with floor-based slaughter, and expected consumer acceptability; and set out recommendations for discussion at the expert consultation.

The review will be submitted as a full report and a two-page summary suitable for circulation to consultation participants in advance of the expert consultation meeting.

Activity 2: Expert consultation meeting

The consultant will organise and facilitate a one-day consultation with approximately 15 experts drawn from the Department of Animal Health and provincial Sub-Departments of Animal Health, the Vietnam Food Administration, the National Authority for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance, the National Institute for Food Control, and universities and research institutes working on meat science, food technology and food microbiology.

The meeting will address, in sequence: the findings and short-list from the desk review; the regulatory status and residue implications of each short-listed agent; the practical constraints of application in floor-based slaughter; and the design of the laboratory and field trials, including the concentration range to be tested, the contact times that are realistic in a working slaughterhouse, the sampling scheme, and the criteria by which one concentration per agent will be carried from the laboratory to the field.

The meeting should produce two outputs, to be documented by the consultant: 1) the identity of two agents to be prioritized for subsequent laboratory and field-based investigation; 2) for each agent, the concentration range and contact times to be tested. Participants will attend in a professional capacity; no personal data beyond name, institution and position will be recorded.

Activity 3: Qualitative stakeholder acceptability study

A qualitative acceptability study will assess the acceptability of the two decontamination agents among value chain actors, on the premise that acceptability determines whether an effective agent could be adopted and scaled. In the Vietnamese market, consumers report low awareness of microbial contamination but high concern about chemical residues, so a microbiologically effective agent may still be rejected if it is perceived as adding chemicals to meat.

Semi-structured key informant interviews (KIIs) will be conducted with purposive sampling across four groups: at least 10 slaughterhouse owners and workers (those delivering the treatment); pork vendors (intermediaries and recipients); at least 10 consumers; and at least 8 provincial regulators and food safety officers from the Sub-Department of Animal Health, the food safety authority, the agro-forestry-fisheries quality assurance service and the public health service in Thai Nguyen and Hanoi (regulatory acceptability). Recruitment will continue until thematic saturation within each group is achieved. Interviews will be audio-recorded with permission and transcribed. Informed consent will be read out and participants' agreement obtained before any interview or observation; participants are compensated for their time with a small gift (value up to USD 10).

Consultant qualifications

• Graduate degree (PhD preferred) in a food safety relevant discipline

• Experience conducting research in traditional markets in Vietnam

• Relationships and/or familiarity with food safety regulatory bodies in Vietnam

Anticipated timeline

Deliverable 1: Review outline and inception note approved

Deliverable 2: A desk review and rapid field assessment report of the suitability of candidate decontamination agents for the Vietnamese context, and a two-page summary of this

Deliverable 3: Expert consultation meeting report with agreed agents, concentration ranges and contact times

Deliverable 4: KII interview guides

Deliverable 5: Acceptability report and interview transcripts

Application deadline

September 11, 2026