December 16, 2010

Atria, HK Ruokatalo cleared to resume meat export to Russia

Meat shipment constraint into the Russian market has been removed on Friday (Dec 10) from two of Finland's major meat processing firms.

 The Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision (Rosselhoznadzor) announced Thursday (Dec 16) that the temporary restrictions on produce from Atria's Nurmo plant and the HK Ruokatalo plant in Forssa would be removed with immediate effect.

Nevertheless, restrictions on a second pork processing plant owned by Atria in Nurmo are to remain in effect.

There are several production units on the Atria Nurmo slaughterhouse complex, and the export ban now only covers a small facility involving sows.
     
The Russian authorities were in Finland carrying out new inspections in mid-November.
Kyösti Siponen, the Head the Import and Marketing Control Unit at Evira, the Finnish Food Safety Authority, reported on Friday (Dec 10) that the matter of the remaining Atria facility subject to an export ban was at least in part a question of a "misunderstanding" that was hard to shake.

According to Siponen, the misunderstanding concerns demands on how the health of animals coming to slaughter is determined and monitored. Finland employs a monitoring system that covers the entire production chain, but "Russia quite apparently uses different systems", said Siponen.

"Our system is an excellent one, but it is alien to the Russian way of thinking. It is unfortunate from our side that we always get new people coming here to carry out inspections, who have not been appraised of the way in which things are done," he added.
     
Siponen stresses that there is nothing in the differences of approach that would jeopardise food safety.

Atria's larger slaughterhouse for pigs in Nurmo has now nevertheless been passed for exports, which is of greater significance for the company. Atria believes exports will start up again just as soon as the practical arrangements have been sorted out.

"It will require the re-establishment of customer relations, the signing of contracts, and the securing of import licences by the customers, which may take a week or two", says Atria CEO Matti Tikkakoski.
     
Following inspections in May, the Russian authorities placed a total of 14 Finnish foodstuffs plants located inside Finland under temporary export bans.

The group at that time included not merely meat processing firms, but also for instance the dairies of Valio.