Pacific Shelf — Issue 011

Draft Food Safety Law notified to WTO — the instrument that ends the Decree 46 suspension now has a published text.

On 3 August 2026, Vietnam's Food Administration, under the Ministry of Health, notified a draft Food Safety Law to replace the Food Safety Law of 2010. The draft was notified to the SPS Committee as G/SPS/N/VNM/187 and to the TBT Committee as G/TBT/N/VNM/441. These are the same instrument on two notification tracks, not two separate measures.

The notified draft runs to 71 Articles across 8 Chapters. Its stated scope covers principles and policies on food safety management, the food safety information system, prohibited acts, the rights and responsibilities of organisations and individuals, conditions applicable to food business establishments, requirements for imported and exported food, food advertising and labelling, food testing and risk analysis, and state management of food safety.

The eleven revisions listed in the notification include: supplementing principles for food safety management across the whole food chain; designating a single authority responsible for state management of food safety; establishing a unified food safety database from central to local level; restructuring the chapters on food safety conditions, on import and export, and on advertising and labelling into a single chapter; revising testing and technical regulation requirements for consistency with the Law on Product and Goods Quality and the Law on Investment; and extending traceability requirements to all food products circulated on the market.

For Australian exporters: nothing changes today. Decree 15/2018 remains the operative framework for imported food and food additives, and Decree 46/2026 remains suspended. What changes is the horizon. Two provisions in the draft warrant early attention: the single-authority consolidation, which would replace the current split of food safety responsibility across ministries, and the traceability requirement extended to all circulating food products. If the latter survives into the enacted text, it is a documentation obligation that reaches back up the supply chain into Australian production records. Read the notified text now rather than at implementation.

Source: G/SPS/N/VNM/187 and G/TBT/N/VNM/441, notified 3 August 2026. Primary: Vietnam SPS Notification Authority and Enquiry Point record, reviewed directly — spsvietnam.gov.vn. Background: USDA FAS GAIN, 6 August 2026.

Draft Circular on animal feed under the Law on Animal Husbandry — banned substances, permitted materials, testing and labelling.

On 7 August 2026, Vietnam notified a draft Circular detailing provisions of the Law on Animal Husbandry relating to animal feed, as G/SPS/N/VNM/188. The Circular covers the list of chemicals, biological products and microorganisms banned from use in animal feed; the list of materials permitted for use as animal feed, including materials containing precursors; animal feed testing; animal feed labelling; reporting on feed production; and the quality indicators that must be declared in the Declaration of Applied Standards.

For Australian exporters: limited direct relevance to food and beverage subscribers. It matters if you ship feed grains, feed ingredients, or by-product streams into Vietnam, in which case the permitted-materials list and the declared-indicator requirements are the operative sections. Everyone else can note and move on.

Source: G/SPS/N/VNM/188, notified 7 August 2026. Primary: Vietnam SPS Notification Authority and Enquiry Point record, reviewed directly — spsvietnam.gov.vn.

Pacific Shelf has carried "31 Dec 2026" as the Indonesian Nutri-Level front-of-pack labelling deadline since Issue 001. That date is incorrect and has been reproduced in the standing tracker in subsequent issues.

BPOM finalised Regulation No. 10/2026 on 9 June 2026. It revises Nutrition Information (ING) requirements, introduces a voluntary "Healthier Choice" logo, and makes Nutri-Level front-of-pack labelling mandatory for specified beverage categories on the basis of sugar, sodium and total fat content. It applies equally to imported and domestically produced product. Full compliance is required by 17 June 2028.

The tracker below is corrected. We regret the error and thank any subscriber who planned against the earlier date — the practical effect is that you have eighteen months more than we told you, not less.

One procedural note worth flagging. Indonesia's WTO notification G/TBT/N/IDN/56/Add.2 was circulated on 15 June 2026 and purported to open a 60-day comment period on the draft regulation. The final regulation had been promulgated two days earlier. A comment period opened on an already-finalised instrument is not a meaningful opportunity to comment, and it is worth recording as a pattern when assessing how much weight to give Indonesian notification windows in future.

Source: USDA FAS GAIN ID2026-0026. Primary: BPOM Regulation No. 10/2026, promulgated 9 June 2026. Notification: G/TBT/N/IDN/56/Add.2, circulated 15 June 2026.

Vietnam has notified a Circular promulgating QCVN 8-1:2026/BYT, the national technical regulation on maximum limits of mycotoxin contaminants in food, as G/SPS/N/VNM/184. This replaces QCVN 8-1:2011/BYT, issued under Circular 02/2011/TT-BYT, which has governed Vietnamese mycotoxin limits for fifteen years. A draft version was notified in January 2025 as G/SPS/N/VNM/165.

If the limits have moved, this reaches Australian tree nuts, cereals and cereal products, dried fruit, spices and dairy — the aflatoxin M1 limits in particular are a dairy exposure. Vietnamese Ministry of Health working documents from April 2026 indicate the drafting committee was directed to align limit values with the latest Codex and EU versions, which would generally mean tightening.

Source: Vietnam SPS Notification Authority and Enquiry Point notification index. Primary: QCVN 8-1:2026/BYT — text not yet reviewed. Predecessor: QCVN 8-1:2011/BYT under Circular 02/2011/TT-BYT.

No development in this window. The 17 October 2026 deadline for mandatory halal certification of imported food and beverage stands. As of publication that is 67 days away.

For subscribers who have not started: certification pipelines run from one month for simple products to several years where an overseas facility audit is required, and BPOM ML registration is a prerequisite that itself takes three to twelve months. If you are beginning the process this week, you are not making the deadline for products requiring an overseas audit. Plan for a compliance gap and talk to your Indonesian importer about what that means for shipments landing after 17 October rather than assuming an extension.

Full process detail is in the Issue 001 deep dive.

Source: Government Regulation No. 42/2024. Primary: BPJPH — bpjph.halal.go.id.

Why this matters more than a routine notification

Since February 2026, Vietnam's imported food framework has been in an unusual state: legally suspended, indefinitely, with no published successor.

The sequence, for subscribers who joined recently. Decree 46/2026/NĐ-CP took effect on 26 January 2026, introducing a risk-based inspection system for imported food. It caused immediate border disruption. The government issued an emergency suspension on 4 February. On 6 April, Resolution 15/2026/NQ-CP replaced that emergency measure with a formal, indefinite suspension of both Decree 46 and the accompanying product declaration framework.

The critical language in Resolution 15/2026 is conditional. Both instruments remain suspended until the Law on Food Safety (amended) and the Decree guiding the Law on Food Safety (amended) take effect. In Issue 001 we reported that the amended law was still being developed, with no draft published and no timeline set. The suspension therefore had no visible end.

That has changed. The draft is now on the table and notified to the WTO. The condition in Resolution 15/2026 is no longer abstract.

What the draft contains

The notified draft runs to 71 Articles across 8 Chapters:

Four of the eleven listed revisions carry direct consequences for Australian exporters.

1 — Single-authority consolidation. The draft supplements provisions designating a single authority responsible for state management of food safety, supported by a unified food safety database from central to local level. Vietnam has operated a split model since Decree 15/2018, with responsibility divided across the Ministry of Health, the agriculture ministry, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Exporters have long had to determine which ministry governs their product category before they can determine which procedure applies. Consolidation would remove that step. It would also mean the procedural knowledge your Vietnamese importer has accumulated under the current split model has a shelf life.

2 — Whole-chain traceability. The draft revises and supplements requirements for the implementation of traceability for all food products circulated on the market. Read that scope carefully. If it survives into the enacted text, traceability ceases to be a category-specific obligation and becomes general. For an Australian exporter, a whole-chain traceability requirement in the destination market translates into documentation obligations that reach back into your own production and consignment records. This is the provision most worth commenting on while the window is open.

3 — Structural consolidation of import, export, conditions and labelling. Three previously separate chapters — conditions for ensuring food safety, food import and export, and advertising and labelling — are restructured into a single chapter. Structural consolidation is not cosmetic. It changes cross-referencing, and any compliance documentation your business maintains against article numbers in the 2010 Law will need remapping.

4 — Testing and technical regulation alignment. Requirements on food testing and technical regulations are revised for consistency with the Law on Product and Goods Quality and the Law on Investment, and the notification specifically flags addressing issues related to food management measures contained in technical regulations. This is the provision that connects to QCVN instruments — including the mycotoxin regulation flagged above.

What the draft does not say

The notified text does not contain a legislative timeline. It does not state when the law will be submitted to the National Assembly, when it would enter into force, or what transition provisions would apply to existing product declarations lodged under Decree 15/2018.

That last omission is the one to watch. Under Decree 15/2018, self-declaration and registration of product declarations is the core compliance artefact for imported food. Whether existing declarations carry over, need re-lodging, or lapse on commencement is the single question with the most operational consequence for Australian exporters, and the notified draft does not answer it. The guiding Decree — which Resolution 15/2026 names as the second condition for ending the suspension — has not been published at all.

What to do now

Pacific Shelf will track this instrument through to enactment and will cover the guiding Decree the week it is published.

— Jasper Blackwell-Doran Melbourne, Australia

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This digest is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, trade, or compliance advice. Regulatory information should be verified against current primary sources before any action is taken.

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© 2026 Jasper Blackwell-Doran / Pacific Shelf