June 30, 2014

Russia's Rosselkhoznadzor to introduce import restrictions on certain beef products

Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia's federal supervisory agency for agriculture, may introduce provisional restrictions on the import of certain beef-related products from the EU.

According to Alexei Alexeyenko, an aide to the director of the agency, the temporary restrictions will cover only inexpensive offal and mess meat or trimmings, Alexeyenko said.

"Owing to an earlier ban on supplies of port from Europe, beef offal and trimmings started getting to the Russian market disguised as cheap meats," he said. "It's not ruled out that we'll be compelled to impose interim restrictions on these supplies until we hold technical negotiations."

Rosselkhoznadzor plans to map out approaches for the verification and certification of meat products imported from Europe in order to disrupt supplies of 'counterfeit' produce.