Consumer watchdog unhappy with quality of canned fish in Saint Petersburg

Canned fish remains within the zone of increased risk for human consumption, claimed Vsevolod Vishnevetsky, chairman of Saint-Petersburg-based consumer protection organization OOP Obschestvennyi Kontrol, after an expert examination of that food category.

The check has revealed that 50% of canned fish samples do not meet current standards in terms of microbiological values and net weight. In 2006 a similar check has disclosed 20% of samples' incompliance with SanPiN sanitary standards, while this time one half of canned fish samples appeared to be rejected due to their incompliance with food safety standards. Unallowable content of yeast first of all means product spoilage which can have occurred both at the stage of raw fish storage or production and while stored at retail shops at wrong temperatures. The other reason which could have resulted into a loss of consumer properties of marinated fish has to do with deviations from the approved salting process. Another typical violation for marinated herring is underweight which accounted for 10% of the weight declared on the label in some checked samples.