December 26, 2013

Russia to restrict Brazilian poultry meat imports on excessive water

Russia's sanitary service, Rosselkhoznadzor has ordered its regional offices to restrict poultry imports from Brazil which do not comply with the laws on consumer labelling, following a report by a UK newspaper claiming that Brazilian poultry contained excessive water.

"According to available information, in UK retail chains, it has been revealed there was poultry production imported from Brazil with inappropriate labelling. This poultry has undergone further processing with the use of protein-water mixture containing phosphates," a Rospotrebnadzor report said.

Application of such a mixture increases the weight of the final product by about 20%. The Russian authorities are concerned that the use of additional ingredients on the Brazilian products was not declared on the label.

At the moment, imported poultry is not tested for water content in Russia. However, following the claims in the UK, the Russian authorities are now set to conduct the tests.

Russian veterinary authorities regularly express concern over the quality of meat from Brazil. In October 2013, Brazilian poultry imports were threatened with a complete ban on the grounds that chlorine was detected during laboratory inspections.

Rospotrebnadzor does not exclude the possibility that with the detection of violations, it will implement restrictions on poultry imports from Brazil. However, false labelling does not provide grounds to place a total ban on Brazilian imports. Still, authorities will be able to place restrictions on individual companies if mislabelling is found.