The number of complaints submitted to the Consumer Protection Agency rose by 300% compared with two years ago. Most of the complaints refer to inappropriate product labels. Specialists warn the consumers to be very attentive and not to purchase food products with damaged or incomplete labels. The legislation of Moldova should be adjusted to the European one, which provides that the label must say if the product contains allergens and substances that cause intolerance, etc. The theme was discussed in a press club meeting staged by the East Europe Foundation in Moldova, IPN reports.
Sergiu Lelic, deputy head of the Agency’s Client Relations Division, said most of the complaints from consumers refer to milk products ‘of the future’, where the production date is subsequent to the date when they reach the shelves. The people become more responsible and no longer complain only on social networking sites and started to file complaints to the authorities. The consumers also created an online blacklist of business entities that cheat the buyers, make mistakes in labeling and break the law. Each seller is obliged to inform the competent bodies when products that are not marked appropriately are being delivered to them. In the case of consumers, the Consumer Protection Agency offers assistance in filing lawsuits if they suffered as a result of violations committed by companies and tens of persons received damages already.
In the meeting, Viorel Parvan, who is responsible for the Consumer Assistance Center in central Moldova, said most of the over 2,200 complaints they received refer to the quality of labels, namely the lack of use-by date, lack of information, especially in the case of ready or prepacked products, non-translation of labels into Romanian, etc. The consumers who identified products of a poor quality or incongruities can inform the Center on the hotline 022 233 200 or on the website www.alegesanatos.md.
Project assistant Rodica Eladi said many producers, when they design labels for dairy products, intentionally mislead the consumers by writing in visible, capital letters “Sour cream” or “Pressed cheese” and in small letters “Made by...”, mainly in the case of milk products that contain vegetable fats and are not genuine.
The expert compared the European labeling legislation with the Moldovan one and noticed that the EU legislation provides that the use-by date and content of the prepacked product must be mandatorily indicated on the tag. Unlike the Moldovan legislation, the EU legislation stipulates that the label must indicate if the product contains powdered milk and in what quantity. As to processed meat products, there must be indicated the content of meat and water and the country of origin of the raw material. The EU legislation does not allow indicating ‘for children’ on processed meat products as these contain too many food additives and cannot be safe for children.
The experts said that in the case of food additives, the consumers can install on the mobile phone the application “Info Es” that provides information about any food additive.
