The ministry’s Food Safety Authority on Thursday ordered local authorities to examine the manufacturing process of the product.
It also demanded an examination of the advertisement of the product on Facebook and TikTok, which contains signs of misleading information.
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A promotional image of Kera Supergreens Gummies. Photo courtesy of Kera Vietnam |
The Kera gummies, which are promoted by some popular social media influencers including Miss Grand International 2021 Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien, have become a controversial subject after consumers alleged that they contain much lower fiber quantity than advertised.
As the advertisers claim that one gummy alone can replace a vegetable serving per meal, one customer has brought a box of 30 gummies to a quality testing center to examine its fiber amount.
The testing result revealed that an entire Kera box contained only 0.51 grams of fiber, equivalent to one fifth the amount found in 100 grams of banana.
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A worker holds a box of Kera Supergreens Gummies at factory of Asia Life in Dak Lak Province. Photo courtesy of Kera Vietnam |
The recommended fiber intake of the World Health Organization is at least 25 grams per day for adults, which is equivalent to around 50 gummies.
Health authorities of the central highlands province of Dak Lak said they are examining the manufacturing and licensing of Asia Life, the producer of the gummies.
However, Kera Vietnam, the marketing brand of the gummies, said in a Facebook post that its product is made of high quality ingredients sourced locally, and each gummy contains over 200 milligrams of fiber, citing a test report by Avatek Science Technology.
Kera assured that it had received licenses from the Ministry of Health for the product.
It also denied rumors that the product was made in China, and said that a distributor has used unauthorized images of its products on a Chinese e-commerce platform. Kera affirmed that it does not have any partnership with the Chinese distributor.
Lam Vinh Nien, head of clinical nutrition at the University Medical Center in HCMC, said that dietary supplements, including fiber gummies or tablets, should only be viewed as supportive products and cannot replace fresh food in daily diets.
Processing vegetables into powders or gummies can significantly reduce their nutritional value, causing actual nutrient levels to fall far below advertised claims, he added.
