Dual Food Quality: 9% of Food Products Are with the Same Packages but Different Content

According to a study conducted by the European Commission's Joint Research Center on dual food quality in 19 EU member states, 9% of the products differed in composition, although their packaging was identical, the BNR reported.

In analyzing nearly 1400 samples of 128 food products in 19 countries, including Bulgaria, 9 percent of them were of different composition, although they had a similar package. Thus, differences in compositions in exactly identical or similar packaged foods are detected in one third of the products.

However, the report does not reveal any significant difference in East-West content in the bloc, despite complaints from new member states that multinationals are selling lower-quality food in their supermarkets.

Hungarian EU commissioner Tibor Navracsics said he was pleased that there was no evidence of differences in food quality between the East and West in the EU, but identified the new revelations as "mixed".

"I am worried that they uncovered up to one third of tested products having different compositions while being identically or similarly branded," he said in a statement.

Since Commission President Jean-Claude Junker made dual food standards an issue in his state of the union speech in 2017, the Commission has established a common way to test food products and set EU-wide rules to make similarly branded food have the same content.

EC spokesperson Mina Andreeva said: "Commission President Junker share the concern of all our citizens, especially when there is a sense of second-hand citizens in our common market, and that is certainly not acceptable for him, so he is committed to resolving the case in the most appropriate way ".

Andreeva assured that the food monitoring will continue.