Last week the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection published a report on pet food control carried out by the Trade Inspection. A total of 478 batches of pet food were inspected, up to 90 batches of products. In addition, samples were taken from 80 batches of products – dog and cat food and were sent to laboratory tests. Irregularities were found in 22 of them, or 27.5%. For example:
Dog food:
- no poultry in canned food “beef with chicken ‘at the declared, among others composition: 45% beef, 15% chicken, found while the presence of pork;
- lower protein content in canned food (by 10,0% declaration, and 5,2%);
Cat food:
- no beef in canned “beef” at declared, among others Composition: 70% beef (lungs, meat, liver, kidneys), 28,8% beef broth, the presence of pork was found;
- lower fat content in canned food (by the 6,5% declaration, and it was 4,1%)
The report of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection immediately associated me with the presentation Tackling Food Fraud — Science in the Service of Protecting Authenticity and Attesting Originof Giorgio Rusconi FLN member, during the conference INNOVATIVE FOOD hosted by EESC and FLN the subject of falsification of food, which I had the pleasure to see at the conference. The question whether the irregularities were the result of deliberates action or simply resulted from inaccuracies and errors of producers. I also remembered the situation with which I met personally. The product was a fish in a chanterelle sauce, (let’s skip the name of a well known producer), but there was no trace of the chanterelle in the product. The entire report can be found under the link.