How the introduction of “Honest mark” threatens milk producers in Stavropol region

According to the official website of the state system of labeling and tracing "Honest mark", the main task of the new measure is to guarantee the quality and authenticity of goods to consumers. Each customer can scan the code on the package and find out where the product was produced (and, accordingly, where the code was applied), what the product consists of, and how far it went to the store shelf. Thus, mandatory labeling should reduce the number of victims of falsification and increase the number of legal businesses in the country.

However, representatives of dairy enterprises in Stavropol region say that the introduction of additional labeling will not help to fight falsification and will make it difficult for honest producers to work.

‘A year ago, we introduced the Mercury system. They said that it would be possible to track the path of milk fr om a cow to the store shelf, but in fact, we see that this is not the case. At the same time, the number of employees who must monitor the labeling has increased. In addition, the Mercury system itself does not often work correctly. The same will happen with the "Honest mark", perhaps even worse, because the mark itself must be applied to the product immediately at the time of release. In summer, we process 300 tons of milk per day and produce 200 types of products. There will definitely be failures,’ says Sergey Dutov, Sales Director of JSC Stavropolsky dairy plant.

He also noted that the introduction of a new quality control system will negatively affect the work of not only manufacturers, but also sellers — owners of small stores.

‘Not all stores have readers, because it's expensive. For this reason, a few years ago, small outlets refused to sell cigarettes. It turns out that now they have to give up milk, and some stores will probably close,’ said Dutov.

According to the commercial Director of Kazminsky dairy plant Denis Garnaga, the implementation of the “Honest mark” system at the enterprise will cost at least 20 million rubles.

‘Of course, this will affect the cost of the final product by an average of 1.8 rubles per liter. At the same time, we see a drop in demand, because the purchasing power against the background of the crisis has become lower,’ he says.

Garnaga believes that the “Honest mark” system will duplicate the existing labeling tool Mercury. In addition, according to him, both systems do not take into account the human factor.

‘The Mercury program is raw. Any mistake that production employees make is almost impossible to correct. This ultimately leads to losses. At the same time, we remember that Mercury was introduced, among other things, to protect the market from falsified products, but in fact nothing has changed,’ he said.

According to Marina Petrova, Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Moscow chamber of Commerce and industry for the development of entrepreneurship in the agro-industrial complex, it is currently unreasonable to introduce the "Honest mark" system for food products against the background of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis.

‘We can look at the pharmaceutical industry, wh ere due to the introduction of the labeling system, there were immediately interruptions in a number of drugs. In the case of dairy producers, a number of small businesses will not be able to install equipment for the "Honest mark" and will be forced to withdraw from the market. Together with them, the farms that supply them with milk may also leave the market. This means that we can lose in the industry what we have worked on so hard for the last 2-3 years,’ she said.

According to the Deputy Minister of agriculture of Stavropol region Alexey Krisan, in 2019, the region produced more than 500 thousand tons of milk, which was higher than in 2018. At the same time, agricultural enterprises accounted for 25% of the milk produced, and personal subsidiary farms accounted for 66%. For 9 months of this year, 390 thousand tons were produced. According to the official, this corresponds to the level of last year.

As Krisan noted, the Stavropol authorities intend to support the region's dairy industry and increase the amount of milk produced. For this purpose, dairy livestock is regularly purchased. So, in the current year, 2.6 thousand animals were purchased, which in the future may give an increase of 7 thousand liters of milk.

According to Marina Petrova, in 2020, the volume of consumption of dairy products in the North Caucasus Federal district and in Stavropol region shows growth. However, the coronavirus pandemic has affected the popularity of certain products among buyers. This was primarily due to a decrease in the purchasing power of the population.

‘Consumers have started saving, and this is evident. The increase is in sales of milk and fermented baked milk. Consumers are switching to traditional types of products, so they are growing,’ she said.

According to Marina Petrova, the second wave of the coronacrisis will make basic dairy products even more popular. In her opinion, dairy producers will have to adapt to this situation.

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