The FINANCIAL — Sour cream sold in Georgia contains low quality margarine, according to experts of the Food Safety Project at the Centre for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia.
This product contains trans-fatty acids which stimulate weight gain processes and can cause disease. Experts advise consumers not to buy this product. Recommendations concern almost all milk producing factories since the majority of them are marketing margarine-based butter and sour-cream as natural products.
“The majority of dairy companies are adding vegetable fat to their sour cream. Sour-cream is obtained by fermenting a regular cream by certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. In Georgia, even in Soviet times, sour cream was obtained by whisked butter and milk. At present however companies are using low quality margarine instead. This contains trans-fatty acids,” Lia Todua, Director of the Food Safety Project at the Centre for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia, told The FINANCIAL.
“Sales of such low quality margarine are forbidden in the EU. The purchasing of trans-fat is not monitored in Georgia. Natural sour-cream should not contain vegetable fat. In our country every producer receives standard licenses, which permits the use of vegetable fat,” Todua said.
Natural sour cream on the Georgian market would not be able to maintain a level of competitiveness. “Natural and falsified products cannot have the same price, because with higher costs they cannot remain competitive. Therefore they would have to leave the market,” she said.
All major supermarkets and distribution companies sell locally-made sour cream. There is no imported high quality sour cream, while it is possible for consumers to find expensive butter products produced in Germany and the Netherlands in local supermarkets.
“The best alternative for sour cream is sour milk. It is natural. Sour milk does not need preservatives added to it, or pasteurization,” Todua said.
Salome Kutateladze, Marketing Director at Wimm-Bill-Dann, one of the market leaders in dairy products in Georgia and the CIS, said the quality of their products are non-questionable and the company is ready to provide state certificates and results proving that their sour cream contains 93% milk-fatty acids. But agreement on joint examination is not yet reached.
Wimm-Bill-Dann was not listed in the study of the Food Safety Project in 2009, as the company has not been operating on Georgian market. Expertise of the sour cream produced by Wimm-Bill-Dann in 2011 showed that it contains 10% of milk fat, according to momxmarebeli.ge, official website of Food Safety Project.
Both, Wimm-Bill-Dann and Sante claimed that result of study by Food Safety Project is not reliable. Both companies claim that their products are made by natural milk.
According to GeoStat, in 2011 3,884.4 tons of milk-powder was imported in Georgia. The top five countries exporting milk-powder to Georgia are Lithuania, Ukraine, the Netherlands, France and Belgium.
Dedoplisckaro dairy factory has not been working for two months. Milking decreases during autumn and winter. “We will resume our work in two months, when milking resumes as usual. Presently all dairy companies are facing a natural milk deficit. Milk-powder is mostly imported from Ukraine and Armenia. I do not think that there is enough natural milk in Georgia to supply all the dairy companies,” said Lekso Modebadze, Director at Dedoplisckaro dairy factory.
Producers of meat and dairy products, banned over the seven weeks of fasting at lent, forecast a reduction in sale volumes by 15-20%. Companies manage to make up for the reduction with different types of convenience food specifically for fasting.
Demand for dairy products decreases by 15-20% at Eco-Food during lent. The company compensates for it with a sales increase on fasting products. “During winter we import milk powder from Belgium, France, Lithuania and the Czech Republic,” said Shalva Alavidze, Head of Marketing at Eco-Food.
“Milking will resume in April and we will resume making products from natural milk. We have special collection centres. Our suppliers are from Eastern Georgia: Kakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Samskhe-Javakheti,” Alavidze said. He said that from April 2012 the company will start producing cheese. The total sum of investments is 6 million EUR.
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