World meat industry news

The Ministry of Agriculture intends to tighten the turnover of meat products by changing the rules for issuing veterinary accompanying documents. In fact, the changes proposed by the ministry imply the abandonment of automated acceptance of products and the transition to its manual registration, experts explained.

Retailers fear that such an innovation will slow down logistics, and this is fraught with an increase in the price of meat and difficulties with its supply. Representatives of online trade admitted the possibility of refusal to deliver such products. The Ministry of Agriculture explained: under the current order, products infected with dangerous animal diseases get into stores.

The turnover of meat products is going to be tightened. The Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a draft order on amendments to the "List of products of animal origin for which authorized persons of organizations ... can issue veterinary accompanying documents (VSD)". Izvestia got acquainted with the document.

In the new version, the draft order excludes meat and edible offal from the low-risk category, Natalya Nazarova, director of the ANO Institute for the Development of Entrepreneurship and Economics, explained to Izvestiya. This means that sellers will need a veterinarian or a certified specialist to process veterinary documents. Now such papers are drawn up by employees of enterprises.

“In fact, the adoption of the project means the rejection of the automated acceptance of meat products and the transition to its manual processing,” Natalia Nazarova emphasized to Izvestia.

In addition, it turns out that companies will be forced to use the services of certified specialists and pay for their work.

The Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) is confident that if such amendments are adopted, aggregators and retail chains with a large share of online trade will not be able to deliver meat products or their price will jump.