BY THE LAW OF THE CONSUMER

The State Service for Antimonopoly Policy and Consumer Protection at Azerbaijan's Ministry of Economic Development has established a new laboratory for quality and food safety control. All conditions are right here for a quick high-accuracy analysis of the physical-chemical, biological and toxicological indicators of food: meat and meat products, fish, milk and dairy products, canned products, vegetables and fruit, vegetable and animal oils.

Laboratory equipment was manufactured by leading companies such as Varian, Siemens, Labart, Orka Food, Esco Biotech, Schmartze and was accredited by the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents. Work is now underway on laboratory accreditation in accordance with the international standard ISO 17025.

The establishment of the laboratory for quality and food safety control is an objective reality. Almost every day, the State Service for Antimonopoly Policy reports on regular monitoring of the consumer market in the country. For example, in November and early December, about 716 kg of food products that had passed their sell-by date were discovered - sausages, confectionery, dairy products, butter, canned fish and seafood, soft drinks, juices, beer, etc. They were all withdrawn from sale and destroyed. But how many of these products are still on the shelves?

Although relevant departments have tightened control over food quality, complaints from customers keep coming. Their legitimacy is proved by the work of the State Service for Antimonopoly Policy. There are complaints about meat, butter, and consumer goods. As for counterfeit goods which are certainly available on the market, you can still find wines sold under the guise of "French" brands in retail. But the most dangerous product is often bread, according to consumers. According to international standards, the shelf life of flour is one year. However, according to the Union of Free Consumers, fairly large amounts of flour on the domestic market are overdue. Consequently, shops sell bread and bread products made from flour that has passed its sell-by date, which causes fungal diseases in the body.

There are a lot of complaints about sausages. There are cases when bird feathers were found in fairly expensive sausage, allegedly of Israeli production. And it was bought in a fairly prestigious store. It is noteworthy that the paper label was stuck on the sausage itself, which should not happen in a vacuum package. This suggests that the sausage was manufactured not somewhere in Israel, but in some local underground workshop.

According to the head of the food hygiene department at the Hygiene and Epidemiology Centre, on the Azerbaijani market, competition between manufacturers is now so high that it is hard to imagine that a company seeking to gain a foothold on the commodity market is deliberately producing goods of poor quality. At the same time, stores sell low-quality meats that have passed their sell-by date. The reason is most often that sausage manufacturers are not meticulous in finding partners that sell their products, do not pay attention to the fact that a shop may not have enough space to store their products or that the product is not stored in the fridge and norms of temperature and humidity are not observed. This is the reason why sausage ends up on the shelves with bacterial contamination and inadequate physical and chemical characteristics.

It is also important how we are informed about the date of manufacture and expiry. If it is a paper label that can be easily replaced by another, it is better to keep away from such a product. It is necessary to clearly indicate the coordinates, address and phone numbers of the manufacturer so that you can find it if you buy a low-quality product. It is necessary to pay attention to the conditions in which products are stored in shops. This also applies to baby food which is kept in inadequate conditions at 40 degrees in many stores.

It is necessary to pay the closest attention to the presence of the date of issue, the date of expiry and the certificate of quality. It is common knowledge that most of the Russian-made chocolates on sale in Azerbaijan do not have Russian quality. There are a lot of fake biscuits and Ukrainian salt. According to the state service, this affects consumers, the legitimate manufacturer of the goods and the market itself. Due to unfair competition, the real distributor of goods goes bankrupt, others thrive and do not pay taxes, while we are forced to buy and eat poor quality food.

Each buyer has the right to ask the seller to show a certificate of quality and compliance while buying a food product, according to the law "On the Protection of Consumer Rights". Of course, it is also necessary to pay attention to the labelling of products and not to eat any suspicious food. After all, the price of carelessness can be very high. Another question is that as a result of low consumer culture, people are not interested in the information stated on the product label. And the producers do not particularly want to educate buyers. That is to say low consumer culture plays into the hands of manufacturers of defective products. Consumers, especially those from poor families, are more interested in low price. As for the State Service for Standardization, Metrology and Patents, this body hopes that the creation of the new laboratory at the Ministry of Economic Development will reduce the flow of substandard products into the market.