The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA), which should be a powerful tool of the state in consumer protection, turns out to be helpless before the "epidemic" from low-quality products, writes in. " Now".
In the summer, the non-governmental organization "Active users" came up with an analysis of 36 different brands of cheese sold commercially. It turned out that the percentage of water in some samples exceeded 70 and even 80% - with an acceptable 60%.
You pay for cheese, you get... brine
A few days ago, another NGO - the Association for Affordable and Quality Food, held a round table on the same topic, citing the results of laboratory tests showing that out of five products labeled "sheep's cheese" only one is truly made from 100% sheep's milk and the others are a "combination" of ingredients. Sample of "buffalo" yellow cheese showed a complete absence of buffalo milk. The forum also discussed the rise of the "sponges" - cheeses with an abnormally high water content (75% percent and even more.
„If water is 75.5% and salt is 4.5%, in this "cheese" it has 80% salt water", comments Vladislav Mihailov from the Association of Milk Processors.
Against the background of growing activity of the non-governmental sector, BABAH is surprisingly passive. What's more, it seems to be trying to cover up irregularities and offenders. Last year, for example, when the data on fake sheep's cheeses and yellow cheeses were published, the agency disputed the results - the samples were not examined quite according to European rules, a high-ranking official from the BABH explained at the time.
Who spews imitation foods?
From time to time, food inspectors carry out checks and find violations - in dairies and workshops, in markets, in grocers and supermarkets. The shocking thing is that even when they discover great outrages, the BABH keeps the perpetrators a secret. The justification has been the same since the agency existed - the legal basis did not allow the names of the offenders to be published. It remains a mystery why this absurdity continues - consumers have the right to know which goods are counterfeit and who is deceiving them.
The industry knows where pseudocheeses are produced. BABH also knows, as it was understood at the round table - there is an enterprise that has already been closed due to serious violations, but continues to spew lies.
„It was closed twice after reports and checks, but it continues to work, which is perhaps the more worrying fact”, commented Andrey Velchev from „For affordable and quality food”.
They are helpless from BABH. "We have closed it, it works. We send documents to the prosecutor's office and after a month the prosecutor's office gives us an answer that there is no evidence of a crime," explained Dr. Kamen Nikolov from the agency.
Hands tied?!
While BABH justifies that its hands are tied because of the regulatory framework, "Active users" has been helping people for years to navigate which labels to believe by publishing detailed data on the results of laboratory tests of various food groups - dairy products, sausages, honey, etc., indicating the specific brands of the goods examined, prices and where they were purchased from.
Undoubtedly, there are wonderful and honorable experts working in the state agency, but clearly something is wrong in the control activity and at the top.
From the Association of Milk Processors, they are dissatisfied with the "gray competition", which offers "non-standard" products as quality foods, and demand both stricter control and more publicity of inspections. They want urgent changes in the legal framework to allow offenders to be publicized. The civil organizations for consumer protection want the same - and for years.
It remains a mystery why, with so many changes at the top of the BBAH and the Ministry of Agriculture, no one "brave" was found to propose the necessary changes in the legal framework.