The National Food Safety Agency withdrew about 3.5 tonnes of nonconforming dairy products from the market. Some 2.7 tonnes of these products were made in Moldova. The information was presented in parliamentary hearings held on February 28, IPN reports.
The Agency took and examined 203 samples of dairy products. “We did our best to cover all the dairy producers and their products,” said the Agency’s vice director Ion Toma. It was established that violations are mainly committed by the same producers. These prefer to pay fines of 15,000 lei than to meet the imposed quality standards. The National Food Safety Agency placed restrictions on the withdrawn products and these can no longer be sold.
The MPs who took part in the hearings proposed introducing harsher penalties for dishonest producers, up to the closure of the business. MP Petru Porcescu said the punishment should have been made harsher two-three years ago. He criticized the Agency for doing nothing until the alarm bells started ringing. He referred to a study made public recently by a public organization, which showed that many of the dairy products sold in Moldova contain higher levels of vegetable fats than allowed.
Ion Toma said the Agency formulated a number of proposals for amending the legislation and making the business entities more responsible. If a product label contains other components than the ones announced by the producer, this can be said to be a forged product. “The products that contain vegetable fats in excess should be placed on shelves separated from the dairy products. These products should be marked correctly or the consumers would be cheated,” stated the Agency’s vice director.
A study initiated by East Europe Foundation and conducted in the labs of the Center of Applied Metrology and Certification showed that the milk fats in many of the dairy products sold in Moldova, such as butter, sour cream, cheese and pressed cheese, are substituted with vegetable and other kinds of fats. There were analyzed 126 samples of national and imported dairy products.
