Deputy Chairman of the State Duma on the sidelines of the EEF called for additional quality control of fish

"Fishermen must develop quality standards that will make it impossible for "fish with water" to appear on the shelves. Today, it is a problem when there is water in the frying pan instead of fish," said Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya, speaking at the session of the EEF "The Fishing Industry - the Driver of the Socio-Economic Development of the Far East" on September 4.

The fact that the practice of reducing the cost of fish products by adding polyphosphates and water to fish exists was noted by the General Director of the Russian Fishery Company (a member of the Fishery Shipowners Association, FSA) Saveliy Karpukhin. He emphasized that fishermen today ensure the highest possible quality of raw materials during processing at sea and freezing finished products within a few hours after catching. But when producing consumer products, quality can seriously suffer. According to the head of the RFC, this is allowed by companies that are chasing immediate profit.

Given this situation, Irina Yarovaya called for the creation of an additional system of control and responsibility. "Because in a country rich in fish, this should not happen," the deputy emphasized.

Saveliy Karpukhin drew attention to the importance of segmenting the supply of fish products in accordance with the preferences of various categories of consumers and called for special attention to be paid to baby food. According to the head of the Russian Fishery Company, the key point here is to offer children a high-quality, tasty product, and not the one that is often offered in schools today - "an ugly carcass with fins and bones."

"Everyone reports that they feed children fish, but in fact they do not eat it in childhood and then do not continue to eat it in adulthood," said Saveliy Karpukhin, emphasizing that the school diet should include frozen pollock fillet in order to feed children high-quality and tasty fish - without polyphosphates and water.

Let us recall that the Fishery Shipowners Association, FSA has consistently advocated for adding deep-processed fish products to the school menu, including pollock mince and surimi products. This proposal is taken into account in the "road map" for increasing fish consumption in the country. The document, approved by the Government, provides for the development of proposals to expand the range of fish products in sanitary food standards. Such standards apply to school and preschool nutrition and a number of other areas.