Roskontrol named brands of fake and low-quality butter
The experts re-checked several brands represented in many Russian stores.
Counterfeits – we come across them every day in ordinary grocery supermarkets. It is very difficult not to be mistaken. After all, unscrupulous manufacturers will never write on the label in their lives that their milk contains vegetable fats, and that cheese is actually a cheese product. But of all dairy products, butter is most often counterfeited. But we buy it not even for ourselves (a figure!), But for children. Potentially hazardous ingredients are added to the oil – beef and pork fat. It is rather difficult to identify them.
Recently experts ““We decided to check how things are with butter on the shelves of our stores. The laboratory tested products of seven brands: Izbenka, Iz Vologda, Cow iz Korenovka, Prostokvashino, Joy of taste, Ruzskoe milk, Zelo Zeloe.
As it turned out, things are not bad with them: no falsifications have been identified, the marking on the label is reliable, and everything is fine with heat resistance. There were only claims to microbiological indicators: experts found an excess in the content of yeast and mold in Izbenka oil. However, it was agreed that bacteria could get into the oil during transportation – not necessarily in production.
But two years ago, the results of the examination were much sadder.
Then the experts of the expert center of the Union of Consumers “»Tried – we checked 37 brands presented in our stores and rejected most of them. There were no comments only for six brands.
Wrong fat
Oil is not the cheapest product. And if you save on its production, you can significantly increase profits. The first way to save money is to replace milk fat with alternative ones. Vegetable fats were found in the oil “Native Kitchen”, “Solnechnaya Dolina”, “Love Product”, “Milk Plus”, “Poseidon Service”. And in the “House in the village” they found beef fat.
Adding vegetable fats will not harm your health. But such a product no longer has the right to be called oil, it is a spread. But with non-dairy animal fats, the story is different.
“Non-dairy animal fats, especially beef fats, have an unfavorable ratio of fatty acids, contain a large amount of trans fatty acids and pose a direct threat to health, as they can provoke diseases of the circulatory system,” explains Andrey Mosov, head of the analytical bureau of Roskontrol.
The second way to save money on quality is to lower the fat content of the oil. The label says 82,5%, but in fact the mass fraction of fat is 80, or even 75%. Eight manufacturers were noticed in direct deception of buyers: Poseidon Service, Kirzhach Dairy Plant, Rovenki, Milk Patterns, Mu-u, Prostokvashino, Vologodskoe iz Vologda, Dmitrov Dairy Plant.
Misrepresenting a product on a label is a serious violation.
Almost everyone failed to check the organoleptic properties, that is, taste, smell and consistency. 31 samples were rejected. The specialists have serious complaints about 12 of them: Milk Plus, Kirzhach Dairy Plant, Rovenki, Native Kitchen, Solnechnaya Dolina, Number Mu, Poseidon Service, Choice of the Hostess, Baltkom “, Sernur cheese factory,” Sincerely yours “,” Peasant patterns “. The claims are:
empty, unexpressed, uncharacteristic for oil taste and smell;
taste and smell of flavoring;
the taste and smell of oxidized fat;
a shaff formed on the surface of the oil – a dark yellow layer with an unpleasant taste and smell.
From the point of view of requirements for safety rules, the situation is quite decent. Only two brands were found to be downright hazardous to health. These are “That same butter” and “Kuban milkman” – bacteria of the E. coli group were found in these products. This is a sign (sounds disgusting, but true) faecal contamination of the product.
The presence of such bacteria in the oil indicates that the production is seriously violating sanitary requirements. This can be the rules of personal hygiene of personnel, and veterinary and sanitary requirements. The result is one – microbes enter the products, among which there can be really dangerous ones, provoking an intestinal infection or causing poisoning.
But there are really high-quality products! Six of the samples tested were nearly flawless. Here they are: “Vkusnoteevo”, “Joy of taste”, “Brest-Litovsk”, “Ekomilk”, Valuiki and “Belorusskoe”.