Russian vets blacklisting seven seafood plants from China and Vietnam

During recent food safety checks of imported products the Russian veterinary and phytosanitary service Rosselkhoznadzor has rejected a 24-tonne consignment of seafood cocktail made in China due to presence of staphylococcus in the samples checked.

More specifically, as of 3 May 2007 Rosselkhoznadzor has introduced temporary restrictions for import of products made by Chinese SZHEJIANC DAISHAN BAOFA AQUATIC PRODUCT CO, LTD.

At the same time, the Russian vets from Rosselkhoznadzor have asked China's main state body in charge of inspection, quality checks and quarantine to do a similar investigation in order to find out the reasons of the bacterial contamination of the products meant for export to Russia.

Further statements

Further statements of Rosselkhoznadzor say that as of 7 May 2007 the body operating under the Ministry of Agriculture has imposed special controls on seafood imports from some other Chinese and Vietnamese plants taking into account results of lab checks discovering serious food safety violations in their products. Those plants are 4400/02183 (Guangzhou Tingfond Aquatic Food Development Co., Ltd.) and 4400/02270 (Maoming Changxing Foods Co., Ltd) from China and DL 152 (Nam Viet Company Ltd. (NAVICO)), DL 347 (BASA Co. Ltd.), DL 354 (Godaco Seafood) and DL 376 (Q.V.D Dong Thap Food Co., Ltd) from Vietnam.

According to comments from some Russian importers, the imposed routines are in fact an indirect ban of imports because the goods already shipped have to be seized and put in isolated storage while future shipments will be subject to total control for food safety and hardly any Russian importer will risk to go through all time-consuming loopholes of the strict vet procedures.

See full account of the test results in a separate report to appear shortly.