Agriculture Minister Armend Muja said that every meat shipment originating from Brazil is undergoing 100 percent inspection. The decision was made following suspicions that the expiry-date labels on meat intended for Kosovo may have been changed.
Montenegrin authorities have stopped around 103 tonnes of frozen beef on two occasions, shipped to the Kosovo-based company “Apetit SHPK”. According to reports from Montenegro, the products had passed their expiry dates, while in the first case there were also suspicions that the original labels had been replaced.
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Referring to the detention of the meat at the Port of Bar, Muja said that Kosovo’s institutions had increased inspections and were analyzing all shipments imported from Brazil.
“We have introduced 100 percent inspection of meat shipments from Brazil following notification from the European Union that Brazil would be removed from the list of approved establishments. On September 29, we received the first information confirming the suspicions held by the authorities that in some of these shipments there had been, or there were suspicions of, label changes. So far, we have this information from the authorities in Montenegro. However, I would like to inform you that, in parallel and regardless of Montenegro’s actions and the official report, which we are officially awaiting, since September we have ordered 100 percent inspection of every shipment. Since September, inspections have been more intensive, perhaps more extensive, sometimes within the market. Verification inspections have also been launched for every shipment from January through September 5. A total of 1,446 meat shipments from Brazil are being verified one by one. Every economic operator is being inspected; Apetit is one of the major operators, but 60 percent of imports come from other operators, and those are also being verified one by one,” Muja said.
Alliance MP Time Kadrijaj requested clarification about the risk that consuming expired meat could pose to citizens. She also raised questions about the inspection measures and the responsibility of the institutions.
“The population must not be poisoned. Would they put the company Apetit on the blacklist? You are buying expired meat in order to poison the population,” Kadrijaj stressed.
