Russia removes 24,000 Latvian products from stores

Russia has halted the sale of Latvian canned sprats, blaming low standards, reports nozare.lv.

Around 24,000 cans of sprats will be taken out of circulation in Russia after lab results showed that the contents of the canned sprats are not in line with standards, a Russian consumer group Rosselkhoznadzor said.

The moves by Russian agencies appear to be politically motivated, Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said in an interview with the LNT television.

This is strongly suggested by the fact that similar measures are also being taken against other Baltic companies, said Dombrovskis.

There is no reason to believe at the moment that Latvian companies' products have problems with quality because the Latvian Food and Veterinary Service has not established any violations, at least not on the part of "Randa", one of the companies affected by Russian agencies' actions.

Elsewhere, fish cannery company Randa said it was baffled at the Russian federal service Rosselkhoznadzor's" statement regarding excessively high chemical levels allegedly found in the company's sprats exported to Russia, the company's co-owner and board member, Oskars Grosmanis, told the "Nozare.lv" business portal 

According to a news agency ITAR-TASS report, sprats produced by Randa have been found to contain excessively high levels of benzopyrene. From now on, sprats produced by Randa are under close scrutiny in Russia, Rosselkhoznadzor said.

"We are completely baffled. We have received no official information but, judging from the data posted at the website, the maximum level has been exceeded 35 times, which is totally absurd. In such a case, it should have been a box of coals, not a canned fish," said Grosmanis.

He went on to say that all the company's products were made according to all the relevant requirements, and the company was no expecting further information from Russia regarding the case.