Proposal to Streamline Administrative Procedures for Street Vendors and Street Food

The draft legislation is under consideration at the 2nd Session of the 16th National Assembly. On November 11, a representative of the Food Safety Authority under the Ministry of Health explained that the sticky rice basket at an alley entrance, the sidewalk bread cart, or casual neighborhood eateries represent the livelihoods of millions of Vietnamese citizens while defining the distinctive character of street food culture. However, ingredients of ambiguous origin, alongside constrained storage and preparation environments, leave these businesses vulnerable to food safety risks.

The draft bill adopts a more balanced approach: easing administrative burdens, zeroing in on critical risk controls, and elevating vendor accountability. The goal is to safeguard consumer health without placing low-income vendors in precarious survival situations.

Streamlining Formalities to Facilitate Small Businesses

A key highlight of the draft bill is the proposal to waive Food Safety Eligibility Certificates for micro-scale food producers, small retailers, mobile vendors, and street food stalls.

Food items processed directly by micro-businesses and street vendors would also be exempt from registering product declarations or announcing product standards under the proposed framework.

This regulation relieves itinerant vendors, cart operators, and household vendors from paperwork requirements that are fundamentally incompatible with their operating scale and physical conditions. Rather than expending resources on procedural bureaucracy, regulatory agencies can concentrate on inspecting direct hazards that immediately impact consumer health.

This practical stance aligns with the operational realities of vendors working with limited capital, nomadic locations, modest revenues, and minimal access to legal advisory services.

Certificate Exemptions Do Not Equal Exemption from Responsibility

Despite the certificate exemption, small businesses must still adhere to essential food safety criteria. These requirements include using clean water supplies, locating preparation areas away from potential contaminants, selecting traceable ingredients, and upholding strict hygiene during preparation, storage, and customer service.

The draft also obligates vendors to register their personal details, trade locations, and signed food safety commitments with local administrative bodies.

Ward and commune-level People’s Committees will oversee the collection of registry details, alongside guiding, inspecting, and monitoring micro-retailers and street stalls. This grassroots oversight establishes the operational basis for authorities to detect risks early, correct non-compliance, and resolve incidents directly within local neighborhoods.

Shifting the regulatory focal point from pre-approval licensing to post-market surveillance lowers market entry barriers without diminishing vendor responsibility. Vendors remain legally accountable for delivering safe, wholesome food to consumers.

Street food sold on Nui Truc Street, Hanoi. Photo: Thanh Nga

Basic Logbooks Replace Complex Documentation Demands

Ingredient traceability has also been recalibrated to ensure operational feasibility. For vendors selling sticky rice, banh mi, noodle dishes, or pushing mobile food carts, managing enterprise-grade electronic invoicing systems is an unrealistic expectation.

Instead, the draft permits micro-vendors and street food operators to document ingredient provenance using basic purchase invoices, receipts, manual logbooks, or other suitable records.

A simple notebook recording the ingredient name, supplier contact, purchase date, and order volume is sufficient. Should a food safety incident arise, these records enable authorities to pinpoint supply origins, trace contaminated inventory, and cross-reference related distribution channels.

This framework also prompts vendors to pay closer attention to ingredient sources and quality rather than selecting goods solely by lowest cost. By accommodating the practical realities of informal street commerce, the policy avoids burdensome compliance overhead while preserving necessary traceability.

Source: vnexpress.net