RIGA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lab tests have confirmed suspicions that imported food products sold in Latvia and products of the same brands that can be bought in Western Europe are not of the same quality, the Latvian food authority informed on Tuesday.
Several other Central European countries have conducted similar tests into the dual-quality foods issue and have presented their findings. The unfair practice was addressed by Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the Union address earlier this year.
Investigating into the "double standards program", the Food and Veterinary Service compared 38 samples of food products and three samples of pet food.
Tests of the samples of Nutella hazelnut cocoa spread, for example, showed that the product bought in Germany contained skim milk powder, whereas the product of the same name sold in Latvia had been made with whey powder.
A comparison of Milka chocolate bars sold in Germany and those sold in Latvia showed that their labels were identical, but lab tests revealed that the proportions of nuts and chocolate were different and in both cases nut content was below 20 percent, contrary to what the label said.
"As compared to tests conducted in other countries -- the Czech Republic, Slovakia -- we see that our data are quite similar. Under the current regulations, a product that does not contain any forbidden ingredients and has all its ingredients named on the label, can be perfectly legally sold on the market, so the European Commission is now facing a major challenge: to identify the reasons for these qualitative differences and eradicate the double standards," said Maris Balodis, director general of the Latvian Food and Veterinary Service.
The Food and Veterinary Service will forward the data obtained to the European Commission's Joint Research Centre for further analysis.
