The Ministry of Agriculture announced new rules for handling meat in trade

Now the line employees of the stores are working with the accompanying documents. The main goal of the idea of ​​the Ministry of Agriculture is to reduce the number of violations in the preparation of accompanying papers. The ministry noted that no final decisions have yet been made: the regulator chooses the best solution, including in cooperation with specialized unions and associations.

The Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) sent a letter to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (available to Agroinvestor), in which it asked to form a negative review of this project of the Ministry of Agriculture. They believe that authorized persons of organizations that are manufacturers of controlled goods or participants in the circulation of controlled goods will not be able to independently draw up veterinary accompanying documents (VSD) from the group. The Association is concerned that the proposed changes will stop the circulation of products of group 02 ( MEAT and by-products), will not allow either trading companies or marketplaces to use already configured supply chains and integration solutions, work with B2B customers for products of animal origin, and will also cause irreparable damage development of the e-commerce market.

The association believes that the changes will lead to the formation of an artificial shortage of goods, since the outlet will no longer be able to accept meat directly from the manufacturer, even though all products are in industrial vacuum packaging and exclude contact with the external environment. 

The Ministry of Agriculture  calls the innovation a change in order, although in essence it is a global reform, while the only reason for its implementation is indicated: violations made during the execution of veterinary accompanying documents, said Artem Sokolov, president of ACIT. “Everything is recorded as a violation, even an incorrectly indicated vehicle number, but there is no evidence anywhere that dangerous products are in circulation - there are no reports on this matter over the past two years,” he said.

In the summary report, at first glance, the numbers look frightening: violations committed during the registration of VSD by authorized persons led to the legalization of 75 thousand tons of controlled goods of unknown origin in 2021, and 35 thousand tons in 2022, Sokolov continues. However, for the whole of 2022, a total of about 7 million tons of meat was produced. Thus, the Ministry of Agriculture speaks of violations in the execution by authorized persons of 0.5% of the total.

For online commerce, where products of animal origin account for about 40% of all grocery orders, the requirement is absolutely impossible: the specificity of express delivery services is that the service picks up goods from each individual outlet, Sokolov clarifies. In this regard, in order to place an order, it will be necessary to maintain a state or certified veterinarian in each store, during the entire working day, seven days a week. 

“At the same time, the number of available specialists is not able to cover the needs of enterprises, since, according to our calculations, it is six times less than necessary,” adds Sokolov. “Moreover, such changes are absurd: products of group 02 enter circulation after passing all the stages of safety assessment, industrial production, they are individually packaged with the manufacturer’s marking and do not require a veterinarian — replacing one person with another will not eliminate errors in the registration system, because the human factor is preserved.

Igor Karavaev, chairman of the AKORT presidium, said that the transition to manual execution of accompanying veterinary documents would create a collapse in the meat retail supply system and an artificial shortage of meat in stores. “In this case, the outlet will not be able to accept goods from the manufacturer – this will have to be done by a veterinarian or a certified specialist, but the number of such specialists is now at least six times less than the market needs,” he agrees with Sokolov.

According to Karavaev, state veterinarians, neither technically nor physically, will be able to issue VVD to all market participants in a timely manner. He believes that in this case there will be a systemic long-term failure in the workflow, which will lead to interruptions in the supply chain. Considering that only ACORT member retail chains have about 100 thousand stores and more than 100 distribution centers, each requires a full-time specialist for such work 24/7. According to AKORT, additional trade costs in this case will amount to billions of rubles per month. As a result, the cost of delivery of products will inevitably increase, and as a result, the retail price.