Which Companies' Poultry Products Have Been Found Non-Compliant: Food Safety Authority Reports

‘Investigative Journalists’ NGO’s ‘Hetq’ newspaper, prior to starting a study of the local poultry market, approached the Food Safety Inspection Body of Armenia with a proposal for concurrent sampling. The Food Safety Authority reported this.

“Inspectors from the Yerevan center of the Inspection Body took samples of frozen chickens produced on May 15, 2023, from brands ‘Araks’, ‘Ashtarak’, ‘Erebuni’, and ‘Getamej’ during a check-up at one of the sales networks, and submitted them to the Republican Veterinary and Phytosanitary Laboratory Services Center for laboratory examination. Considering that the Food Safety Authority cannot conduct inspections without basis, samples were taken from the sales network where state control was ongoing at that moment (as per the 2023 inspection program). The sampling was conducted only on the 4 available product types.

Representatives of ‘Hetq’ also purchased frozen chicken from another sales network of 2 brands (if discrepancies are found in the poultry samples of these two brands, the Inspection Body will accept this as a signal and carry out state control). According to the results of the laboratory examination, frozen poultry from ‘Araks’ and ‘Getamej’ brands tested positive for Salmonella, while the ‘Erebuni’ brand did not comply with the MafamMK indicators as per the requirements of the Technical Regulation of the Customs Union on the Safety of Poultry and Poultry Products.

Based on the identified violations, the Inspection Body has issued an order to ban the sale of frozen chickens produced on May 15, 2023, recall them from the market, withdraw or destroy them.

Control measures are currently being carried out at ‘Araks Poultry Factory’ and Vlad Hakobyan’s ‘Combined Feed Factory’ LLC (under the ‘Erebuni’ brand), as well as at ‘Getamej 2016’ LLC. No violations have been found in the frozen poultry of the ‘Ashtarak’ brand.”