09 апреля 2015 14:29

Producers of milk and butter mislead consumers: Kazakhstan's Agriculture Minister

ПОДЕЛИТЬСЯ

Photo courtesy of foodsafetyhelpline.com. Photo courtesy of foodsafetyhelpline.com.

Kazakhstan’s Minister of Agriculture Asylzhan Mamytbekov has talked about dairy products, particularly milk and butter, produced in Kazakhstan that violate technical regulations and mislead consumers, Tengrinews reports. He spoke about it at Kazakhstan's Food Security: The Urgency of Agriculture and Agribusiness Development conference organized by American Chamber of Commerce and held on March 13 in Astana.


Kazakhstan’s Minister of Agriculture Asylzhan Mamytbekov has talked about dairy products, particularly milk and butter, produced in Kazakhstan that violate technical regulations and mislead consumers, Tengrinews reports. He spoke about it at Kazakhstan's Food Security: The Urgency of Agriculture and Agribusiness Development conference organized by American Chamber of Commerce and held on March 13 in Astana.

"One dairy farm in Kostanai oblast recently had to dump 30 tons of milk, because a milk plant did not accept (the dairy farm’s) milk. Milk plant often prefer to use powdered milk supplied by Russia and then sell it (milk) as if it was natural milk. Why? Because, unfortunately, in the market the concepts are changing for consumers. Milk that, in fact, has no right to be even called milk is sold everywhere as if it was real milk. We know that nearly half of all the milk is produced from powder,” Mamytbekov explained.

"If you walk into a grossery store, you will not find reconstituted milk, it is what it (milk produced from powder) should be called. According to Kazakhstan's technical regulations, milk, which is made of powder, should be called reconstituted milk. But you won't find any such milk, because it is surprisingly called natural milk," Mamytbekov said.

In such conditions, producers of natural milk have to compete with producers, who use powder to produce milk. This violates the technical regulations and misleads consumers.  According to the Minister, if consumers knew the truth, they would rather pay a little bit more for the product that it is real and healthier. “Because of the lack of proper control, our consumers have to end up in such situation,” Mamytbekov said. 

Besides milk, Kazakhstan’s Agriculture Minister also spoke about other dairy products. "Butter competes with spreads and butter, which contains natural additives. Margarine is called butter. The same is true for other products. For example, last year when a tomato paste was tested, it turned out that it did not contain any tomatoes. There were mashed vegetables full of flavorings and colorings, but it was called 'tomato paste'. This falsification is deception of consumer. It has a huge negative impact on our producers. They can not compete with unscrupulous products, and it significally affects both their profits and sales," he said. Mamytbekov emphasized that Kazakhstan had to step up control in that area.

The video below was made by the Kazakh farmer who had to dump 30 tons of milk. 

Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev, writing by Assel Satubaldina, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina

 
Читайте также
Join Telegram

Exchange Rates

 446.77   483   4.85 

 

Weather

 

Редакция Advertising
Социальные сети