Translated material
Drinking together
Rospotrebnadzor agreed to fight counterfeit alcohol with the participation of importers
Participants in the alcohol market managed to break through the armor of the impregnable Rospotrebnadzor and agreed to create an advisory council, whose task will be, first of all, to jointly combat counterfeit products. Previously, Gennady Onishchenko’s department practically did not make contact with its “wards”.Rospotrebnadzor at one time made a significant contribution to whipping up hysteria and panic in the alcohol market. Having banned the import of wines, cognacs and wine materials from Moldova and Georgia into the country in April, and withdrawn its previously issued sanitary and epidemiological conclusions, Rospotrebnadzor at one time threatened the same to Argentine and Chilean products, and then to wine importers from Belarus and Ukraine and China. Obtaining an audience with the chief sanitary doctor turned out to be practically impossible, either for individual importers or for associations and unions, of which several dozen have already been created in Russia.
The Association of Alcohol Market Participants managed to negotiate the first major meeting between Mr. Onishchenko’s subordinates and business representatives. After which, Rospotrebnadzor officials considered it possible to agree to the formation of a “pool” of leading market operators who would join the advisory council under their department. The draft regulations on the creation of such a council were discussed at several working meetings of the Deputy Head of Rospotrebnadzor Lyudmila Gulchenko with business representatives, where the Association of Alcohol Market Participants, the Union of Winegrowers and Winemakers of Russia, the National Alcohol Association, the Union of Alcohol Producers, the Aroma Trading House, LLC "National Wine Terminal", Rusimport, "Rusalkogol" and others.
As stated in the message posted on the Rospotrebnadzor website following the meetings, measures have been outlined to optimize the quality and safety checks of alcoholic beverages imported into Russia at customs checkpoints. Representatives of the department discussed with entrepreneurs issues related to the entry of counterfeit and falsified products onto the market. Approaches to the development of unified methods for determining the naturalness and unnaturalness of wines and the establishment of uniform quality criteria have been identified.
However, although the press release states that as a result of the meeting, intentions were confirmed to strengthen coordination and interaction between government agencies and the business community in order to eliminate problems in the sphere of alcohol products circulation, in fact, the service for supervision of consumer rights protection for its part operators the market has not yet promised anything. No loyalty, no solution to the problems of those importers whose products were blacklisted by Rospotrebnadzor.
“No one is interested in legal producers leaving the market, as today, whose working capital is stuck in declared illegal bottles, so we hope that the problem can be resolved through joint efforts,” one of them told Vremya Novostey after the meeting. importers, who wished to remain anonymous. Both the industry and officials are mutually interested in establishing contacts, says Dmitry Dobrov, press secretary of the Union of Alcohol Producers. “Rospotrebnadzor” did not respond to letters and appeals sent to it by market participants for a long time, and now we can finally hope for the beginning of a constructive dialogue,” says Vadim Drobiz, a representative of the Union of Alcohol Market Participants, whose members are supposed to meet with “Rospotrebnadzor.” Today. “We have developed technical regulations, corporate standards, ready-made models of quality standards that we are ready to offer. But the most important thing is to look into each other’s eyes and start communicating,” Mr. Drobiz is sure.