Mar
22
Two-edged sword
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ECONOMY
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How to prove the quality of Ukrainian cheese when the manufacturer buys milk used for its production from farmers as adulteration?
Photo by Oleksandr KARPIUK
70 PERCENT OF MILK IS BOUGHT FROM FARMERS BY MILK PROCESSING FACTORIES IN UKRAINE AND IS REGISTERED AS ADULTERATED AT THE PRICE OF 2 TO 2.5 HRYVNIAS PER LITER
State Phytosanitary Services of Ukraine and Russia have exchanged “pleasantries.” It seems that the “cheese” conflict between them is getting to higher temperature. The top management of both agencies by turns lay the blame on each other trying to explain the fact that Russian stores won’t have Ukrainian cheese on its counters for at least another week. Only on March 19 it became known that the Russian inspection team for examining the work of Ukrainian dairymen will arrive on March 26 instead of March 19 as it was previously planned.
Let us remind the readers of that on March 19 the delegation of Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service on Customers’ Rights Protection and Human Well-Being Surveillance) was supposed to arrive in Ukraine to check the quality of Ukrainian cheese production. However, The Day before the scheduled date of the visit the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Chief Sanitary Inspector of Russia Gennadiy Onishchenko cancelled the visit of inspectors accusing the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine of breakdown of the meeting. Allegedly, the Ukrainian side did not provide Russian delegation with clearly agreed technical parameters of the delegation visit, the list of people who would be a part of inspection teams, and the like. “Instead of technical coordination of conditions, the order, routes of examination, and the time of stay on the Ukrainian territory, after not receiving a response from the Ministry of Agriculture of Ukraine, during the second half of the past week we only observed some discussions and references made to obscure expertise,” complained to reporters Onishchenko. He suggested that if the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine is so “irresponsible” and not well organized, it would be better to work without it. According to Onishchenko, Federal Service is ready to conduct dialogue with Ukrainian cheese producers directly. “I suggest that those three plants, which we have nominated as the first stage of approval, should contact our experts directly. We are prepared to transfer work in working condition, critical for the manufacturers, without participation of the official agencies, who, from what it seems, have little interest in the resolving the situation,” said the Chief Sanitary Inspector of the Russian Federation.
For the State Veterinary and Sanitary Service such statements from neighbors have become a real surprise. The Ukrainian side assures that the Russians themselves have thwarted the inspection of cheese factories. “Everything that has been said today is a lie, I can not describe it in any other words. Since on March 13 we have sent a letter to the Russian side signed by our minister, stating that the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food would facilitate the conduction of inspection in every way. For the purpose of detailed check-out the Ukrainian agency asked to provide the information about the number of experts and the time of arrival of the experts’ team,” Ivan Bysiuk, head of the State Veterinary and Sanitary Service replied to the allegations of Russian colleagues. According to him, this letter to the Russian Ministry was sent by e-mail, fax, and via diplomatic channels of the Foreign Ministry. He also stressed that in a telephone conversation on March 16 the representative of the Russian side Liudmyla Shchikina informed that the letter was received and the response to it had to be signed by one of the leaders of the Federal Service. At the same time, according to the head of the State Veterinary and Sanitary Service, she did not say anything about its contents and said that they should not worry about the visit of inspectors, because it was still unknown whether it will be sent at all. Therefore, the attacks toward Ukraine by the Chief Sanitary Inspector of Russia, in opinion of Bysiuk, are nothing but the desire to prevent the Ukrainian manufacturer from coming to the territory of the Customs Union. Thus, the Russian side is simply playing for time.
It is really hard to defend Ukrainian producers in a situation like this. As Hryhorii Kaletnik, people’s deputy told The Day 70 percent of milk is bought from farmers by milk processing factories in Ukraine and is registered as adulterated at the price of 2 to 2.5 hryvnias per liter. “I flew to Russia trying to resolve the conflict. They [Ukrainian cheese producers. – Ed.] came up to me. I said to them, you take 70 percent of your milk from farmers and buy it as adulterated, now how am I supposed to convince Russia that you make high quality cheese and butter if you make it out of ‘adulterated’ milk?!” said Kaletnik. Thus, according to the MP, the producers were punished for being dishonest. “They collect milk for two hryvnias per liter and say that it is adulterated, then they scold Russian that they do not recognize the conditioning of their butter and cheese. Now who is to blame?” outraged Kaletnik.
It seems that not only the producers of cheese might be “punished” but also other dairy producers and even the meat industry. Suspicions about the quality of Ukrainian food products have already appeared in Belarus. As reported in the Russian Agricultural Service, when they announced that they were going to conduct a routine inspection of compliance of phytosanitary standards on a number of Ukrainian companies that supply products to Russia in April they were allegedly approached by the Departament of Veterinary Food Surveillance of Belarus with a request to check the number of Ukrainian companies suppliers in Belarus. Among those companies there were, in particular, the company “Danone-Dnipro,” JSC “Laktalis-Mykolaiv,” company “Prometei,” JSC “Halychyna,” Zhytomyr Butter Factory, Myrhorod Butter and Cheese Factory, Bila Tserkva Dairy Factory, Inc. “Druzhba Narodov,” and “ONISS” (meat production).
The Day has requested comment on the situation of the producers who got into this list. “We have not yet received any documents regarding inspection of ‘Halychyna,’” said Natalia Holovchenko, PR manager of the Dairy Company “Halychyna” in an interview with the reporter of The Day. “However, we are ready for any inspections because we are certain about the high quality of our products. We have modern milk tanks for transporting milk. We have modern equipment, which thoroughly checks raw materials. Therefore, we guarantee high quality of the finished product.” For other mentioned “lucky” companies the news of the inspections was a real surprise. For the “Danone-Dnipro” the mentioning of Russian inspection was big news because the company does not supply their cheese on the Russian market. The company “Druzhba Narodov” does not have any commercial relations with Russia at all.
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