Horse DNA was found in minced beef from the Auchan hypermarket

Auchan has launched an internal investigation into the appearance of counterfeit meat products in its stores. Earlier, during an inspection of four hypermarkets in the Moscow region, Rosselkhoznadzor discovered about 90% of counterfeit products. The department will send data on violations to the court. An inspection of stores showed that the composition on the labels of meat products in Auchan does not correspond to reality - one type of meat is replaced with another, less valuable one. In particular, the department found contaminants of pork, chicken and lamb in minced beef. Rosselkhoznadzor also noted that horse DNA was found in one of the product samples in the hypermarket chain. Chairman of the Russian Consumer Union Petr Shelishch spoke with Kommersant FM host Natalya Zhdanova.

Photo: Petr Kassin, Kommersant / buy photo

— Tell me, how often do such violations occur? Is it something so egregious or not, or was it just another check that showed this?

— Such violations occur extremely often, but are detected extremely rarely. It is especially distressing that, according to the information available on the websites, Rosselkhoznadzor carried out this inspection on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister. Inspection of specific products, a specific network on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister. It seemed to me that this should be their official duty, every day they should be engaged in such checks, they are also called supervision, state supervision. And as for meat, firstly, I have not found Rosselkhoznadzor information anywhere about 90%. There is information about two identified cases. One with supposedly ground beef, which contains signs of horse meat and pork, and the other about a pizza with expired sausage.

In fact, Rospotrebnadzor annually rejects several percent of what it inspects during its inspections of meat products. Here you and I buy 6 million tons of meat and meat products per year. 1% of 6 million tons is 60 thousand tons or 60 million kg. Imagine, in fact, what we are talking about. How much does a kilogram cost? Let’s say, on average, no less than 200 rubles, including poultry. How much are you and I overpaying for bad meat, if Rospotrebnadzor rejected 5% per year after checking 3 thousand tons? Well, this is a common situation. He can't check everything.

That is, in fact, even according to official data from state supervisory authorities, the situation is depressing. We overpay hundreds of billions of rubles for food that should properly be thrown away, and we also ruin our health. If you look at the data from examinations of independent public consumer organizations, various expert centers - by the way, all these examinations are carried out in the same laboratories of Rospotrebnadzor, Rosstandart, Epidemiological Surveillance, accredited laboratories - the picture is even worse. There, tens of percent should be thrown away and not eaten. It is clear that when crisis phenomena begin in the economy, the situation for the consumer worsens sharply due to the fact that there is also a hidden factor - our quality is degraded, for the same price they give us something else, of a lower grade, with worse raw materials, cheaper, made using cheaper technologies.

As for the chains, I will tell you that we need to get them to base their system of employee incentives not on incentives for a minimum of goods that are not sold to consumers, which is why they re-label the labels and go to great lengths, but precisely on sanctions for violations identified by internal control itself, especially external supervision. Then the situation would be better for the consumer.

And, of course, state supervisors should have significantly more rights and work much more actively, without waiting for instructions from the Deputy Prime Minister.

— Do you think this case with Auchan will remain isolated, or will mass checks in networks begin after this?

— I don’t think that the situation in networks is worse than in non-networks. On the contrary, in small stores, where the owner’s position depends much more strongly on whether he can sell, everything is even worse. Here there must be, firstly, inspections not by campaigns, but systematic, systematic and without any orders from the very top of power. Most importantly, there must be a different level of responsibility, that is, in past years the average size of fines for violations, and violations were detected on average two per inspection, was 3 thousand rubles. Now it has been raised, significantly raised recently under the Administrative Code, but so far I have not heard of these new fines being widely used.

— Well, for Auchan it’s now from 100 thousand rubles. up to 600 thousand rubles. - for a large network this is not so much of a fine.

“Of course, it’s not money for them either.

— Do you think, in general, this whole situation with low-quality products is connected with the introduction of a food embargo, with the fact that there are no high-quality raw materials in Russia and, in general, with the crisis situation in the economy?

- Of course, connected. The worse the economic situation, the tougher the competition. Not everyone can stay afloat, but everyone wants to stay afloat and goes to great lengths. First of all, if manufacturers raise prices, people will not buy from them. And by the way, the networks - this is their big sin - they select suppliers at the lowest price, and they thereby stimulate them, but they don’t really check what they are given, “give us something cheaper,” here they are and they give it cheaper, worsening the raw materials and preparation technologies.

— There is probably a shortage of raw materials, did foreign raw materials come in instead of Russian ones?

“The problem is that our agriculture does not provide as much as it should and as would be natural to expect from a huge country with huge acreage, with huge funds invested in agriculture. Investing in agriculture is what the state should do. Of course, we need to support our producers and raise them in every possible way, but not give them conditions under which they can freely sell, excuse me, all sorts of rubbish. He understands what he creates.

“We overpay hundreds of billions of rubles for food that should be thrown away”