Ukraine has suspended exports of chicken meat to Russia by domestic producers MHP and Agromars while it investigates a Russian allegation of contamination, the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service said.
“We have temporarily suspended (exports) upon Russia’s
request,” a spokesman for the service said on Monday. He said
the Russian authorities had said they had found harmful
salmonella and listeria bacteria in chicken from Ukraine.
“There will be an investigation … We have no information
so far; it is not clear in which producer’s meat they were
found.”
The suspension also affects sales to Belarus and Kazakhstan,
which are members of a Russia-led customs union.
MHP spokeswoman Anastasia Soboytuk said: “We expect the ban
to be lifted in the near future, within a few weeks, because we
are confident about the quality of our products.”
She said this was not the first time such a suspension had
happened.
MHP, Ukraine’s largest poultry producer, said Russia and
Kazakhstan accounted for about 15-20 percent of its exports. The
company sold 375,300 tonnes of chicken meat last year in total
and exported 58,000 tonnes of frozen chicken meat.
Agromars spokeswoman Viktoria Savchuk said the company
expected test results for its meat to be clean.
The group produced 160,000 tonnes of chicken meat last year
and exported about 7 percent of its output to the customs union
countries, Savchuk said.
“Since we are focused on the domestic market this suspension
does not affect us significantly,” she said.
