The nation’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) announced the decision to temporarily restrict US turkey meat and turkey meat supplies yesterday.
The development follows the move temporarily banning pork and beef, pork and beef raw and pork and beef finished products by the organization on January 30.
Repeated warnings
That was after repeated warnings following continual breaches of Russian rules banning ractopamine’s presence in food and feedstuffs. All restrictions take effect from February 11.
Yevgeny Nepoklonov, deputy head of the Rosselkhoznadzor, wrote to Ronald Jones, assistant administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture, expressing deep regret about the situation.
“The situation is aggravated by the fact that the US continues exportation of meat containing ractopamine residues, which are detected during laboratory monitoring of the imported product safety,” wrote the Rosselkhoznadzor in a statement.
‘Undue additional costs’
“Failure of the American party to supply reliable ractopamine free meat results in undue additional costs spent by the Russian members of foreign trade on disposal, recycling or re-export of products non-compliant with the safety requirements.
“The Rosselkhoznadzor repeatedly notified the US Competent Authorities that in case of their failure to take necessary measures temporary restrictions on importation of some types of meat products from the US would be considered.
“Alongside with that the Rosselkhoznadzor required official guarantees that finished meat products imported into Russia were manufactured from ractopamine free raw meat produced on the US establishments approved for exportation to Russia and other [Eurasian] Customs Union countries. No reply to the request has been received by the Rosselkhoznadzor.”