Products with palm oil will be deprived of benefits

Thus, if the product contains vegetable fats or other substitutes, since July 16, the manufacturer must indicate this on the package in bright letters. The manufacturers should write “contains vegetable oils” on the package or on the label of products consisting not only of natural milk". The font of the inscription should be highlighted in color on a special information field.

"Information that the product contains substitutes for milk fat is already present on the package. But now the inscription should be large, contrast and noticeable", - explains Executive Director of the National Union of milk producers Artem Belov to "Rossiyskaya Gazeta".

In addition, he adds, the technical regulations limit the use of "fancy" names that would mislead the consumer, causing direct associations with dairy products. For example, you cannot use names such as "sour cream - like".

But the situation on the market will not be changed only by a more vivid labeling of products with milk content. Strict labelling requirements have been available in the past, says Executive Director of the Russian Union of dairy industry enterprises Lyudmila Manitskaya.

The main problem is that dishonest manufacturers mislead the consumer by not labeling the product at all, for example, by calling cheese a cheese product. These changes will not affect such manufacturers, adds Artem Belov.

The Ministry of agriculture understands this. Therefore, they proposed to raise the VAT rate to 18, and then to 20 percent. Now it is preferential - 10 percent, like for all basic food products - vegetables, cereals, milk, bread, meat, fish, as well as children's goods, books, textbooks and medicines.

To experts advise to approach the implementation of this idea very carefully. "The problem is not that the fat is bad, but that falsification is passed for natural products. If nothing changes in the system of control over the dishonest manufacturers and just to implement this manipulation with VAT, responsible dairy farmers will suffer. And those who produce falsified products will only win", told Leonid Kholod, an analyst of the agricultural market, doctor of Economic Sciences, in the interview with “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”. Also, in his opinion, the increase in the value added tax will inevitably lead to an increase in the cost of spreads - food products based on a mixture of vegetable and dairy fats with a mass fraction of total fat from 39 to 95 percent. In the production of spreads they usually select such a composition, which is smeared more easily in a cooled form than natural butter. And this also needs to be taken into account. The Chairman of the Board of the National Union of milk producers Andrey Danilenko says: "If the products with substitutes for dairy fats are available on the market, then there is a demand for them, first of all, because of the relatively low price for them".

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