Rospotrebnadzor: Ukrainian Lozova Dairy Plant cheese not cleared for export to Russia

MOSCOW - Russia's consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has not allowed Ukraine's Lozova Dairy Plant to export its cheese to the Russian market, accusing Kyiv of disrupting recent agreements on the "cheese problem".

Rospotrebnadzor said in a press release, received by Interfax on July 24, that it had studied the Ukrainian plant's documents detailing its measures to correct shortcomings detected during an assessment of the enterprise's compliance with Russian milk and dairy products quality requirements.

"Our analysis of these documents exposed a superficial approach to their preparation, as well as production control at the enterprise and control over the identification of cheese and cheese products manufactured by it, which did not allow us to agree to permit this enterprise to enter the Russian market," it said.

"So far Rospotrebnadzor has not received any complete information from Ukraine's Economic Development and Trade Ministry detailing the operations of Ukrainian laboratories testing cheese that could be delivered to the Russian market," the watchdog said.

"Apart from that, the Ukrainian side represented by Ukraine's State Inspectorate for Consumer Rights Protection has failed to honor agreements to draft and sign a memorandum of cooperation with the Federal Consumer Rights and Human Wellbeing Service," Rospotrebnadzor said.

The Russian service's laboratory received 236 samples of cheese produced by the Mensky Syr branch of the Prometei enterprise, the Hadiachsyr company, the Pyriatyn Cheese Factory and Dubnomoloko, it said. A total of 217 samples were tested. Certificates of compliance with Russian food safety requirements were issued for 214 of them.