A team of specialists from the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture, the Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA), and the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) went to Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium in June to take samples from several stores for a comparative study on food quality.

The Romanian specialists were in Maastricht (Netherlands), Aachen (Germany), and Brussels (Belgium) from June 19 to June 26, and took 29 samples from products such as meat and dairy products, canned fish, and chocolate from Lidl, Kaufland, and Delhaize stores. The same number of samples was collected from stores in Romania on June 28-29, according to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture.

The samples were then submitted for comparative analysis to the Institute of Hygiene and Veterinary Public Health Bucharest, belonging to ANSVSA.

The Romanian specialists went to take food samples from stores in the three countries after the Romanian agriculture minister Petre Daea sent a letter to his homologues from Netherlands, Germany and Belgium in early April.

In Romania, representatives of the Agriculture Ministry, ANSVSA, and ANPC formed a working group at the end of February, which is in charge of checking the possible double standards practiced by retailers in the food industry. In a first stage, the group analyzed 175 food products, based on the information the manufactures/distributors wrote on the products’ labels.

Once all the tests are done, the Agriculture Ministry will drew up a final report on the comparative study, a report that will be made public, the Ministry announced.

In late-March this year, the Ombudsman also launched an investigation into the quality of food sold in Eastern Europe compared to that of the food sold in Western countries, after similar actions in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The three countries have signaled possible double standards practiced by the major food brands, which may be selling lower quality food in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe.

Products sold in Bulgaria, different than those sold in Germany

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com