The Vietnamese government is looking to add to its ongoing series of food safety management initiatives over the past few years, with a specific focus on local dairy and alcohol regulations.
Previous efforts have been largely all-inclusive for the whole food and beverage sector, such as the use of a brand new food safety system recently launched in March which was created together with South Korea, as well as a strong commitment to new safety standards by notifying the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this past July.
The most recent planned changes are far more specific – in December 2025, Vietnam announced plans for new, stricter technical standards for liquid milk and alcoholic beverages that are produced, traded or imported into the country.
“The objective of these updates are to ensure the health and safety of all consumers in Vietnam are protected,” the local Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) stated via official documentation submitted to the WTO.
“The proposed updates to both sets of regulations have been drafted and opened to both industry and the public for comment – all responses can be sent to the Vietnam TBT Notification Authority and Enquiry Point via email.”
Major changes
Main updates to the dairy regulations as per the draft document up for comments include stricter limits for quality indicators such as milk protein or milk fat content, as well as upgraded safety and management requirements for liquid milk handling.
Similarly for alcoholic beverages, more focus has been placed on the maximum levels of food safety indicators and management requirements for food alcohol, which is food-grade ethanol used to produce these alcoholic beverages.
“The base food alcohol [must adhere to strict requirements] such as alcohol content, esters content, aldehyde content and so on in order to ensure that all products derived from this will be safe for consumption,” MOIT stated in the draft documentation.
“Separately, individual alcoholic beverage types [must comply with] specific indicator limits, e.g. red wine must be tested for its retained sulfur dioxide content whereas fruit wines made from stone fruits must be tested for hydrocyanic acid content.”
Specific methods for product testing have also been highlighted in the draft regulations so any claims of testing having been done outside the scope of these will not be accepted by the government.
Vietnam is well-known to have some of the cheapest alcohol prices not only in the region but also in the world, with beer averaging anywhere from VND15,000 to VND30,000 (US$0.57 to US$1.14) for a 500ml bottle – these prices have resulted in alcohol being one of the country’s most important economic revenue sources, especially among tourists.
“Organisations and individuals producing, trading and importing food and beverage products are responsible for these products, and to ensure that these fully comply with the technical requirements of this regulation as well as all relevant legal provisions,” the ministry stated.
Public comments on the draft regulations for liquid milk and alcohol (both links in Vietnamese) will remain open until January 2026. Once finalised, enforcement is expected to take place in July 2026.
