Australis becomes sixth Chilean farmer blocked by Russia
Salmon farmer Australis has become the sixth Chilean producer to have its products banned from sale in Russia after the chemical compound crystal violet was allegedly discovered in its fish.
Since last year, Russia’s veterinary service, Rosselkhoznadzor, has been restricting imports of Chilean salmon due to the alleged presence of banned substances, something that the companies contest.
The service has already blocked salmon from Blumar, Mowi, Salmones Aysén, Yadran and Salmones Camanchaca, due to the presence of alleged presence of oxytetracycline in their products.
All five companies say they have not used the antibiotic.
Crystal violet
Now Australis Seafoods has joined them on Russia’s “red list”, through its Fitz Roy plant, for a different reason.
According to an updated report from Rosselkhoznadzor, the presence of crystal violet was detected in Australis Seafoods fish.
Crystal violet has also been detected in fish from a processing plant run by Camanchaca, a company that had previously been blocked from entering Russia due to traces of oxytetracycline.
Visit to Russia
In an interview with Tele13 Radio, Alicia Gallardo, the national director of state aquaculture agency Sernapesca, said that Russia was effectively practising protectionism of its national industry, and had therefore increased the demands not only on aquaculture products, but also to farmers and other countries like Norway.
Gallardo is to visit Russia this week.
She told Fish Farming Expert’s Chilean sister site, Salmonexpert: “Regarding the visit I will make during this week to the director of the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service of Russia, Sergey Dankvert, it is important to emphasise that the objective is to expose our control system from the point of view of the certification, and evaluate the alerts and reasons for them.
Analysis methodologies
“We have to probe what the analysis methodologies and the types of sampling are, since there are Chilean salmon farming centres free of antibiotic use and companies have been blocked for using oxytetracycline.
“What Russia has detected are residue levels above its maximum allowed, which are much stricter than what is established by the Food CODEX, which rules international trade. That is why we want to know what is happening and expand the collaboration of the veterinary services of both countries to develop trust between the competent authorities.”
Between 2017 and 2018, the growth of Chilean salmon exports to Russia was more than 42%, rising from US $281 million to $400m, becoming Chile’s fourth most important market, with promising prospects for expansion.
However, after the successive blockades the returns for shipments fell 19.5% to $322m last year, according to figures reported by the Central Bank.
