NALED: Verification of safety of imported foods is expensive and subject to corruption

The National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) warned today that the process of the verification of safety of the foods imported to Serbia was unnecessarily complicated and expensive for both companies and consumers, while also very vulnerable to corruption.

As NALED said in a release, the economy sector points to arbitrary and unbalanced actions of inspection teams in the control of imported groceries.

- Food safety is a priority, and since certain companies haven't got a negative result of the analysis in more than ten years and given that their shipments are always accompanied by a certificate of health safety issued in the EU, a question arises whether the previous actions of inspection teams were justified and who benefits from them - the release reads.

As it was underlined, certain inspectors always send food samples to the same laboratory, while labs do not issue a document confirming that the analysis is done, which causes doubts in the motives and justification of such procedure.

The Food Safety Law came into force in June 2009, calling for the adoption of 42 bylaws to regulate the food marking, safety and sales as precisely as possible.

So far, Serbian lawmakers are yet to adopt 16 bylaws, including the Regulations governing the inspection procedures and deadlines, NALED stressed in the release.

NALED Beograd

National Alliance for Local Economic Development

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Law on Food Safety

Food Safety Law