Vegetable contamination check for the Vegetarian Festival

Phuket’s Governor, together with the Phuket Mayor, visited Banzan fresh market in Patong today (October 11) to check for any contamination of fresh vegetable and fruits before this year’s Vegetarian Festival.

“The Vegetarian Festival starts from October 20 – 28 and there will be a lot more people consuming vegetables and fruits during the festival. These products can be contaminated by herbicide and insecticide. We have monitored the product along the year and we visited the market today to help create trust among locals and foreign consumers,” said the Governor.

The team of Phuket Provincial Public Health Office, Phuket Municipality and Regional Medical Sciences, Phuket Office collected samples of fresh products from Banzan Market and the Agricultural Market and found 174 of the samples were contaminated with phosphate and carbamate, which are the residues from insecticide. However, 99.42% of the whole samples were safe from insecticides.

“I would like to ask for cooperation from retailers to ensure the safety of the products they sell. The vegetables and fruits sold in Phuket markets usually come from other provinces and we will ask the wholesalers and retailers to identify the source of each product by putting a QR Code to ensure the safety of the product,” he said.

Meanwhile, Phuket’s Mayor, Somjai Suwansupana says that the Municipality has put together a team to randomly check the products in the markets and during this Vegetarian Festival. The team will also check the fresh products as well as the hygiene of food cooked in the 7 Phuket shrines, restaurants and vendors who sell vegetarian food.