Remove non-dairy products
Over the past two years The DairyNews repeatedly expressed the opinion that products where milk fat and protein are replaced by vegetable or other alternative sources - cannot and should not be called milk and regulated by milk technical regulations.
For several years, numerous working groups at the Сustoms Union, technical committees at Rosstandart tried to solve the problem of naming products with a substitute for milk fat. For the consumer, one thing has always been important - the presence or absence of vegetable fats in products, as well as the safety and nutritional value of the product. However, every year the terminology becomes more complicated.
In 2014, the idea of excluding milk-containing products from the technical regulations was expressed by Lyudmila Manitskaya, Executive Director of RSPMO (The Russian Union of dairy industry enterprises). It was not supported, however.
By the end of 2018, we have a situation when the technical regulations 033 “On safety of milk and dairy products" required to call products with the replacement of 50% milk fat with the vegetable fat “milk-containing product with the replacement of milk fat produced by technology of sour cream, cheese, cottage cheese, etc”. Meanwhile, the cases when the replacement of milk fat was higher than 50% are not regulated, while the amount of “milk-containing" products have not increased on the shelves. “Separate shelves” for dairy products and products with vegetable fats did not help either - retailers were very creative in solving the problem set by the Government. There appeared the infamous pointers WMFS (Without milk fat substitutes) and MFR (milk fat replacement) that prior had to be explained to customers.
A NEW ROUND
In September-October 2019, Danone announced the need to exclude milk-containing products from the industry technical regulations. So at one of the conferences the representative of Danone in Russia Tatyana Tkachenko stated: "In the industry we have strived for 11 years to ensure that the concept of products with milk fat substitutes in the technical regulations was regulated".
The company offers the following aspects of regulation:
1. To exclude milk-containing products with milk fat substitutes from the objects of TR CU 033/2013.
2. To combine products with milk fat substitutes into one group, regardless of the percentage of milk fat replacement.
3. To supplement the conceptual apparatus TR CU 021/2011 with concepts for a group of products from vegetable raw materials by technology similar to milk, and a group of products of mixed composition with milk fat substitutes.
4. To establish requirements to labeling of products of the specified groups in TR CU 022/2011 with obligatory inclusion of restrictions on use of dairy terms in this regulation.
5. To consider including the development of appropriate standards for these product categories in the national standardization plan, including standards for test methods.
6. To develop and amend OKPD 2 (All-Russian classifier of products by types of economic activity) regarding the classification of these product groups.
7. To consider the application of HS codes (Commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity).
In November, after the meeting of the technical regulation Committee held on the basis of Soyuzmoloko. During the meeting, changes in TR CU 033/2013 "On safety of milk and dairy products" were considered in terms of exclusion of milk-containing products with milk fat substitutes and the use of the term "creamy" in the name of dairy products in connection with the entry into force of changes in TR CU 022/2011 "Food products in terms of its labeling".
The initiative went further and today is considered as a proposal of the Technical Committee at Rosstandart.
The head of Technical Committee Arkady Ponomarev reminded that the separation of the shelves of products with the indication on the price tags WMFS (without milk fat substitute) and MFR (milk fat replacement) is half-measures. The necessary clarifications about replacing fats or proteins are indicated in their composition, but consumers do not always study it. Often such products are associated with natural milk.
“The industry proposes to give such goods a new definition and name for sale. If the products are made on the basis of milk with the addition of vegetable fats, the thick products should be called cream, pasta, sauce, dessert. If it is liquid, then - a cocktail or a drink. The names should not mislead consumers” believes the expert.
"When we say "ketchup", we know that we are talking about tomato paste or tomato products, but we still give this product a separate name. We do the same in the case of butter and margarine - they are different goods. The same principle should be extended to other products,” he stressed.
If the agencies approve the proposals of the business, the Russian party will have to take such an initiative at the level of the EAEU, since the actions of the technical regulations apply to all States of the Association (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan).
General Director of Soyuzmoloko Artem Belov stressed that the discussion of amendments to technical regulation 033 is already underway at the level of the EAEU.
"Soyuzmoloko is convinced that products with a milk fat substitute are an independent category, which in terms of nutritional value differs from milk and dairy products. They need separate regulation, and they need to be separated from dairy products in circulation,” he said.
According to the head of the standardization group of RSPMO (The Russian Union of dairy industry enterprises) Larisa Abdullayeva, in the technical regulations of the EAEU “On the safety of milk and dairy products” there should be no products at all in which there is at least 1% replacement of milk fat with vegetable fat.
"Dairy terms should not appear in the names of these products. For example, instead of a substitute for cheese - a protein and fat product; for others - mousse, pasta, cream - as is customary around the world," - said Larisa Abdullayeva.
It should be noted that the initiative is not supported by all the industry community - opponents note that milk-containing products despite everything use milk (according to various estimates - from 3 to 6 million tons, including imported raw materials) and it is not necessary to remove them from the technical regulations “On the safety of milk", because it will lead to an increase in prices for products - preferential VAT won’t be applied them. And today, believe the experts, consumers of milk-containing products is the most socially vulnerable category of citizens.
World practice shows that the most important thing for the consumer is honest and simple information about the composition of the product. It will become clear in the near future whether the authorities of the EAEU countries will support the initiative of industry associations.
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