The schools and kindergartens in the municipality of Chisinau continue to allow noncompliant food products and products with the expired shelf life to be given to children. In the course of 2019, experts of the National Food Safety Agency (NFSA) identified fish with parasites, vegetables kept in improper conditions or milk and eggs with the expired use-by date in a number of education institutions in Chisinau, IPN reports.

In a roundtable meeting, NFSA director general Vladislav Cotici said that in most of the inspected institutions, problems are encountered in the supply and receipt of food products. Food products with incomplete labels are accepted or the traceability of products is not respected. The inspectors withdrew over 300 kg of fish and over 500 kg of prepared food au and compiled almost 100 reports by imposing fines of 185,000 lei

Roman Vengher, head of the Chisinau local food safety subdivision, said the recent inspections also revealed sanitary-technical irregularities. The cooking facilities are in need of repair. There are no areas for keeping the fruit and vegetables and the institutions do not have sufficient facilities for storing food. There are no changing rooms for personnel and areas for keeping technical-sanitary equipment and detergents.

Deputy mayor of Chisinau Angela Kutasevich said problems were also identified in the procurement process and in the supply of products to schools and kindergartens. The Chisinau municipality held a meeting with those who organize the alimentation in schools and everyone’s wish was to centralize the tender contests. The given entity will have specialists who will be certified to establish the compliance and noncompliance of food products.

Nadejda Tănase, of the Public Procurement Agency, said the centralization of the procurement process will reduce the administrative effort and will favor the obtaining of lower prices.