Almost 20 percent of Russian dairies are in urgent need of renovation, according to Russia's chief sanitation doctor, Gennadiy Onishchenko. His comments come just three days after 46 children in the east Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk were hospitalized with food poisoning suspected to have been caused by contaminated milk.
Onishenko presented the findings of an inspection made by the Russian consumer rights agency Rospotrebnadzora into 2,409 milk producers to a nationwide video conference chaired by the first vice premier Victor Zubkov on Tuesday. Of the dairies visited, 57.6 percent were found to be in a satisfactory state, while 19 percent required immediate structural renovation.
Onishchenko also noted that some producers failed to adequately regulate the milk's temperature during pasteurization and delivery, which he warned could lead to large-scale outbreaks of food poisoning, particularly among children. Onishchenko's heaviest criticism was directed at the Far-Eastern, Siberian, and Ural federal regions, where 12.5 percent of milk samples tested did not correspond to sanitary standards.
Sanitation is a continuing problem in Russia's dairy industry; last year hundreds of children were hospitalised with severe intestinal problems in the Stavropol region in two separate incidents of poisoning caused by contaminated kefir.
The outbreak was traced back to a number of dairy factories that had employed people with dysentery and had failed to meet sanitary requirements.
But despite these scares, dairy consumption in the country continues to show steady growth, with the overall market for dairy products almost doubling in value over the past five years, according to Euromonitor figures.
A growing number of Russians are switching to Ultra-high temperature processed (UHT) milk which is safer and can be stored for long periods without refrigeration. Although the market outside Moscow is still dominated by sales of fresh/pasteurised milk, which constitute around 80 percent of the total in volume and 70 percent in value.
The Russian government is keen for domestic suppliers to increase production of fresh milk in order to meet growing demand for dairy products; the average amount of milk consumed per head in the country is currently 390 liters per year, while 270 liters per head are produced.
This week Zubkov complained that Russian dairies were being put at a competitive disadvantage by imported powdered milk from Belarusian dairies, which receive state subsidies. He asked the Economic Development Ministry to launch an anti-dumping probe into supplies of powdered milk from Belarus.
The Russian government also announced new milk labeling laws this week that will require products made from powered milk to be labeled as ‘milk drinks.' Under these new standards, only whole milk will be able to carry the label ‘milk.' The government hopes that raising consumer awareness will prompt citizens to buy more fresh milk products and turn away from cheap powdered products.
Onishchenko suggested that a lot of the safety issues regarding fresh milk could be solved by changing the customer delivery method. He advocated a return of the milk trucks that were a common sight in Soviet Moscow, allowing citizens to buy chilled milk by the jug from parked trucks carrying refrigerated milk-filled vats. Experiments in reintroducing these trucks in various regions such as Krasnodar and the republic of North Osetia have already been successful, he told the conference.
By Rebeccah Billing
