For cottage cheese that burns, Rosakkreditatsiya promises journalists a fine of 300 thousand rubles

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Rosakkreditatsiya reacted to Fontanka's investigation of the food declaring market. The department thanked us for the "project" and said that our actions are punishable by an administrative fine of 300 thousand rubles.

Intermediaries, who in batches register false declarations in the state register, are not even allowed to do this. We have analyzed the responses of official departments to our publications. And we realized that the circulation of low-quality food in stores is an established system that no one is going to change. There is only one way not to eat something nasty

Since the cottage cheese caught fire in a tablespoon of the Fontanka correspondent, we figured out what exactly is on the shelves under the guise of dairy products.

Rospotrebnadzor harshly punished violators, whose data was published by Fontanka. So, for the production of "burning curd", he closed the Lev-Tolstovsky dairy plant for 90 days, slowed down the car shops selling them. After the Fontanka correspondent bought six samples of cottage cheese in different districts of the city, none of which had the laboratory found milk fat, Rosportebnadzor carried out its own raid and withdrew as many as 8 kg of dairy products from sale. The Investigative Committee, having familiarized itself with our study of state purchases of cottage cheese, did not see any signs of a crime, but just in case asked Rosportrebnadzor to look again.

Then we began to figure out how fake food from substitutes and surrogates ended up on our shelves. And we got to the certification and declaration system. Indeed, in fact, only the document attached to the product can promise the consumer of the product normal digestion.

As it turned out, the declarations of conformity that we require from sellers are very easy to buy and sell. The most valuable part of the document - the laboratory test report number - is obtained for a small amount without any laboratory tests or product availability. It is impossible to check the percentage of falsified declarations among the entire array of documents registered in the state register on the website of the Russian Accreditation Agency. The certification and declaration market is a black hole in which serious money revolves.

Fontanka entered the curd market, freely registering a nonexistent curd, allegedly of its own authorship. Then she turned to the Russian Accreditation Agency for an explanation.

The first message from the department arrived quickly - just three days after the appeal. Rosakkreditatsiya thanked us for the "project" and said that it "analyzes the activities of the accredited persons mentioned in the article" and decides how to carry out brutal unscheduled inspections against them.

A week later, a more detailed answer came. We were thanked again. And they said that a company that declared a non-existent curd in the course of a journalistic investigation could be brought to administrative responsibility in the form of a fine of up to 300 thousand rubles.

From a detailed explanation of the Federal Accreditation Agency, it follows that the state register is nothing more than a database into which each manufacturer or importer uploads the information that it considers necessary. And the only knowledge that a consumer or a regulatory authority can glean from this register is who said what.

“At the same time, the registration of the declaration of conformity in the register does not mean that the state recognizes the safety of products and is primarily necessary to ensure the traceability of these products,” the department writes."The register of declarations of conformity is necessary to record such statements so that regulatory agencies, consumers and other interested parties can obtain information about who made such a statement."

That is, in the event of mass poisoning, the declaration should help to find the source of the poison. But it will not prevent trouble.

Having made this bitter admission, Rosakkreditatsiya immediately consoled us, noting that the presence of a declaration does not cancel market supervision. Rospotrebnadzor, Rosstandart, Rosselkhoznadzor, EMERCOM of Russia and others authorized to control something can check the product and bring the manufacturer and seller to justice if they find violations. Or they may not check.

If the product, as in our experiment with the declaration, was never released to the market, the declaration of conformity remains just a statement. By speaking into the void. But this does not negate the administrative responsibility, to which the declarant can be brought to justice, as soon as his document has entered the register. "Rosakkreditatsiya" refers to article 14.44 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, according to which we will be held accountable. "In the case described in the article" Fontanka.ru ", the declarant applied for the declaration of a non-existent product, - the department reports.

Also "Rosakkreditatsiya" explained what exactly the certifying authorities take money from those who want to receive the declaration. Not for the very fact of placing a document in the register, but for "professional assessment" - product identification, determination of the list of mandatory documents that establish requirements for it, the range of evidentiary materials and the organization of interaction with the testing laboratory. Those declarants who sort out their relations with the laboratory directly can place the document in the register themselves (recall that for this they must have a test report number). "So, according to the Federal Accreditation Agency, in 2015, out of 971,005 declarations registered in the register, 19,341 were registered without the involvement of certification bodies," the department clarifies. Note that laboratories do not risk selling protocol numbers to manufacturers directly, preferring to hide behind an intermediary. And, As follows from the statistics of "Rosakkreditatsiya", without the involvement of an intermediary, only 2% of declarants in the country completed their documents.

If the declaration turned out to be something wrong due to the fault of the intermediary who issued it, then the administratively punished declarant has the right to present claims to this intermediary - but only "depending on the terms of the contract." And the mediators formulate contracts in such a way that they will not be able to present them with anything. They do not even specify the nature of the services they provide. But Rosakkreditatsiya claims that it conducts inspections of certification bodies on complaints of offended declarants.

It should be noted that the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation does not provide for the liability of certification bodies for violation of the procedure for declaring, since, in accordance with the current regulatory legal acts, "the applicant himself bears responsibility for declaring."

That is, accredited certification bodies and their numerous satellites operate with complete impunity. The only thing that threatens them if something goes wrong is the suspension of the accreditation until the violations are eliminated.

As for the testing laboratories, there is a similar story from the "bribes are smooth" series. “Indicated in the declaration of conformity registered by the certification body Eurotech LLC (through which Fontanka received one of the declarations for non-existent cottage cheese, - ed.), The Favoritinstrument LLC laboratory is not a laboratory accredited in the national accreditation system, - the department writes."And the Federal Accreditation Agency has no right to carry out verification measures against it." That is, grasping hand tool dealers can continue to sell "laboratory protocol" numbers. The Russian Accreditation Agency cannot verify them.

But we issued two declarations, and in one of them the accredited laboratory “Minex-Test” “signed” with the protocol number. “On this fact, Rosaccreditation will conduct a check,” the agency promises. - Before its completion, it is not possible to talk about the presence of violations on the part of this laboratory, since there is no confirmed information that the laboratory issued protocols without testing (it is possible that the certification body referred to non-existent protocols, or to protocols not related to the specified declaration).

At the end of its message to Fontanka, the Federal Accreditation Agency noted that if the declaration contains the details of nonexistent laboratory protocols, then again the applicants will be brought to justice. “Manufacturers and importers of products should weigh the risks of resorting to the services of dubious intermediaries, since all their actions when declaring are legally equivalent to the actions of the applicants themselves,” the department notes.

The letter and a half page contains not a word about whether it is necessary to identify and punish these "dubious intermediaries" so that they do not lead honest producers of curd into sin.

So we can recommend only one thing to our readers. Eat as little as possible. In the current situation, this is the only reliable way to reduce the statistical likelihood that you will eat something that is produced by someone who is not clear and it is not clear under what conditions.

Venus Galeeva

"Fontanka.ru"