Russian salmon caviar sector facing upgrade of preservation methods

With the forthcoming ban for use of urotropin (hexamethyle) as a preservative for salmon caviar canning, some of the Russian canneries have been making attempts to lobby their interests and press for a delay of the deadline for switching to new technologies, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to open letter of first Vice-President of the International Seafood Exchange Mr. Denisov to Russia's fishery industry head Andrey Krainy.

More specifically, urotropin has been removed from the list of approved food additives under the order of Russia's Chief Sanitary Inspector (order No.32 dated 26 May 2008), the decision to come into force as of 1 July 2009.

As an alternative to urotropin, some canneries have already switched to ozone treatment, Korall and VAREX food additives. However, Mr. Denisov described ozone treatment and Korall as failing to comply with modern requirements to the valuable product. Meanwhile, VAREX is seen by Denisov as the only feasible option at the moment. For instance, he has referred to ZAO Kamchadal (closed jsc) as having been exporting salmon caviar with VAREX for five years, with the product made by several fish processing plants of the Russian Far East.

ZAO Gidrostroy (closed jsc), the largest salmon caviar producer in the RFE, has also been working with VAREX for some five years, during which it has produced more than one thousand tonnes of high quality final products partly shipped for export.