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Russian foods withdrawn from Ukrainian shops comply with safety requirements

MOSCOW, April 03, 23:14 /ITAR-TASS/. Russian food products that are being withdrawn from Ukrainian shops meet all the safety and marking requirements, Russia’s consumer rights protection authority (Rospotrebnadzor) said in a statement on Thursday.

“Rospoterbnadzor inspections have revealed no violations of safety and marking requirements in media-mentioned products that are being withdrawn from sales in Ukraine,” the statement said.

Apart from that, Rospotrebnadzor claimed that despite international norm, Ukrainian control bodies had not informed the Russian consumer rights protection authority of any inspections to check the quality and safety of Russian products.

Earlier, Russia’s veterinary and phytosanitary control authority (Rosselkhoznadzor) also said Ukraine had failed to conduct laboratory tests and officially notify Russian manufacturers and control agencies of restrictions imposed on the sales of certain types of Russian food products on the territory of Ukraine.

On April 2, 2014, Ukraine’s state consumer rights protection inspection said it planned to withdraw from Ukrainian trade networks confectioneries produced by Russian companies Krasny Oktyabr, Rot Front, and Babayevsky (all incorporated into the United Confectioneries holding company). Apart from that, the blacklist of Russian foods include cheese made by Laktalis-Istra (President and Galbani brands), and fish products of Vichyunyai Rus and Roskon. The Ukrainian consumer rights watchdog claims these products do not comply with Ukrainian requirements to labeling and marking of food products.

According to Ukrainian media reports, which cite representatives of the national consumer rights watchdog, the checks were initiated by the leader of the Svoboda (Freedom) parliamentary faction, Oleg Tygnibok, who had claimed that the majority of Russian products did not comply with the requirements of the Ukrainian laws and violated consumer rights.

In late July 2013, Rospotrebnadzor (then headed by the then Russian chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko) imposed a ban on imports of confectionery produced by Ukraine’s Roshen concern over claims to the quality and safety of its products, which were found to contain benzapyrene, a cancer-inducing substance. Recovery procedures were launched in late 2013 and the ban on imports of Ukrainian confectionery was to have been completely lifted on March 1, 2014. But, according to Rospotrebnadzor’s acting head Anna Popova, the watchdog had received no reply from the Ukrainian side concerning its requirements to allow Roshen confectionery be back on the Russian market. “There has been absolutely no information from there in the recent period,” she told Itar-Tass. Back in 2012, Russia imposed a ban on imports of cheese from a number of Ukrainian companies.

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