EU – Baltic States, Foodstuff, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

"Smoked pork and chicken is a national dish that has existed in Latvia for many years. The demand for smoked chicken and other smoked meat continues to increase, and many home-based producers, encouraged by the government, have invested large amounts of money into developing their business. We had no idea about the European Commission's pending ban on sale of smoked meat, and we are in a state of shock. The only way to solve this situation is to demand that smoked meat products be given the status of a traditional national product," said Hauka.

She also said that producers were prepared to cover the cost of the necessary labeling.

Agriculture Ministry's State Secretary Aivars Lapins said that the idea was worth pursuing and that ministers would begin to work on the necessary alterations together with home-based producers.

"We will try to prove in Brussels that these are special products that should be applied lower benzopyrene requirements," said Lapins, adding that Latvian officials would cooperate with, for instance, Polish and Lithuanian colleagues during this work.

He also told Saeima committee members, when asked what the maximum benzopyrene level should be for smoked meat, that this figure would yet have to be arrived at.

As reported, the European Commission's three-year transition period on maximum benzopyerene levels in food, which commenced in 2001, will end on September 1 this year. The maximum benzopyrene level will be reduced from five micrograms to two micrograms per kilogram.

Agriculture Minister Janis Duklavs told the Nozare.lv business portal previously that the concerns about stricter health safety requirements on smoked meat products expected this fall were exaggerated.

The respective European Union regulation was adopted in 2011 when Duklavs was serving as the agriculture minister, and Duklavs believes that all producers were timely informed about the pending changes, and the current concerns are unfounded.

"This problem has been overblown. Producer knew already in 2009 that there would be new requirements. At the time, sprat producers were the ones to protest, and we jointly achieved that the restrictions would not apply to fish canneries," explained Duklavs.

He believes that producers have not tried to understand the essence of the problem. "The difference is in the fact that smoked fish is very small – when the permissible benzopyrene levels are applied to fish, the content may be very high, but if you take a big chunk of meat and calculate the smoked part on the surface, there is no way the permissible level could be exceeded," said the minister.

Duklavs reminded that the Agriculture Ministry had offered producers to inform it what requirements they would prefer, so the ministry could try to achieve in Brussels either a transition period or a special status for smoked meat products.