Russian Federation has launches crackdown on banned food imports

The ban was a response to sanctions imposed on Russian Federation over the annexation of Crimea.

Russian Federation complains that some importers are circumventing the ban by illegally slapping on new labels that claim the food was produced in neighboring ex-Soviet countries.

The Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, the country’s main public health watchdog, said during a series of nighttime swoops officials had recovered Polish and Irish meat from businesses in the Moscow Region town of Reutov, Polish apples in Novosibirsk, and vegetable products in Tver.

The Kremlin, hoping to stem the flow of banned products by raising the costs for those involved in contraband, has ignored the public outcry.

The controversial drive to eradicate the smuggled Western food is a continuation of the government order by President Vladimir Putin.

A spokeswoman for the food safety agency Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement released by the agriculture ministry on Thursday that the flattened cheese – amounting to nearly nine tonnes – would be buried underground.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the destruction of the goods – which included pork, tomatoes, peaches and cheese – in a landfill and garbage incinerators, The New York Times reported. The dramatic showing, dubbed “fromagicide”, is the first step in the nation’s renewed ban on products from the West. The sacrifice was not small: Russian Federation used to import 300,000 tons of European cheese a year before the sanctions, according to Jean-Michelle Javel, the president of a French milk cooperative.

Some Russians have protested the ban, noting that it was a waste of good food.

“Still, many European food products were simply relabeled as coming from non-European sources and smuggled into the country”. Turkey plans to double the volume of its products to Russian Federation.

Concerning imports, the EU28 primarily augmented purchases on world markets of “tropical fruits, nut and spices”, “coffee and tea”, cocoa products (beans and paste and powders) and preparations of vegetables, which in most cases were related to higher price levels than in the previous year.

And Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who is usually a supporter of Mr Putin, declared the move “extreme” and proposed sending the food to orphanages and to the separatist pro-Russian regions of eastern Ukraine. “Generally, my opinion and our family’s opinion about the sanctions is that we are grateful for them, because maybe they will shake up businessmen and shake us to the roots and we will start doing it ourselves”.

Experts warn, however, that while some local farmers have thrived, it would take years for Russian Federation to reach self-sufficiency on food and prices will rise, hurting the population. The strict ban on all Western items has made business hard for Russian restaurants.