Russian consumer watchdog seizes 18MT of banned food products
From supermarkets to weekend fairs, Russian authorities are leaving no stone unturned in their search for banned Turkish fruits and vegetables.
In a release, the country's Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) said it carried out "continuous monitoring" between Jan. 1-10, seeking out illegally imported food products.
Since the start of 2016 there have been restrictions on Turkish produce imports as a response to the downing of a Russian jet near the Turkish-Syrian border last year.
During the inspections including more than 1,000 sales points, the consumer watchdog found more than 40% of scanned objects were in violation of the law, mostly due to a lack of documents confirming the country of origin, date of manufacture and date of entry.
In total, 360 lots were seized with a weight of 18 metric tons (MT) and administrative measures were applied, which most likely means they were destroyed.
Photo: RIA Novosti