Russia intensifies inspections of poultry meat from Brazil
Russian sanitary service Rospotrebnadzor has called on its regional authorities to prevent Brazilian poultry imports which do not comply with the laws on consumer labelling. It made the call in the wake of stories in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which claimed that Brazilian poultry contained excessive water.
“According to available information, in UK retail chains it has been revealed there was poultry production imported from Brazil with inappropriate labeling. This poultry has undergone further processing with the use of protein-water mixture containing phosphates,” a Rospotrebnadzor report said.
Application of such a mixture increases the weight of the final product by about 20%. The Russian authorities are concerned that the use of additional ingredients on the Brazilian products were not being declared on the label.
“If the UK is still unclear whether suppliers violated veterinary rules, in the Customs Union veterinary rules clearly prohibit such practices," a department spokesman added.
At the moment, imported poultry is not tested for water content in Russia, however, following the claims in the UK, the Russian authorities are now set to conduct the necessary tests.
Russian veterinary authorities regularly express concern over the quality of meat from Brazil. In October 2013, Brazilian poultry imports were threatened with a complete ban on the grounds that during laboratory inspections chlorine was detected.
Rospotrebnadzor does not exclude the possibility that with the detection of violations it will implement restrictions on poultry imports from Brazil.
However, false labelling does not provide grounds to place a total ban on Brazilian imports, however, the authorities will be able to place restrictions on individual companies if mislabelling is found.
