Russia bans Mowi Chile salmon
Russian veterinary authority Rosselkhoznadzor today banned imports of salmon from Mowi Chile and from three other Chilean producers, Salmones Camanchaca, Salmones Aysen and Cultivos Yadran.
The companies were put on the authority’s “red list”, meaning sales are blocked from the market, reported aquaculture website Undercurrent News. A smaller Chilean processor, Salmones Cailin, was red-listed on January 24.
Mowi’s Chilean operation had previously been placed on yellow alert – or “enhanced control” – by Rosselkhoznadzor on January 15, said Undercurrent, which added that Mowi’s Faroese products have been on yellow alert since November and remain so.
‘Unwanted bacteria’
The Faroes’ biggest farmer, Bakkafrost, was placed on the Rosselkhoznadzor red list on January 22 after the authority said it had detected “unwanted bacteria” in fish. According to reports from the Faroe Islands, Bakkafrost chief executive Regin Jacobsen said the ban could cost his company between DKK240 million and 300 million (£27m to £34m) in lost income this year.
Undercurrent said that Chilean plants belonging to Mitsubishi’s Cermaq Group, Nova Austral, and Productos del Mar Ventisqueros that were placed on the red list last October and remain unable to export to Russia, according to Rosselkhoznadzor.
A plant owned by Chile’s Multiexport Foods, Alimentos Multiexport, was put on the red list late last year.
Trade embargo
Scottish and Norwegian salmon producers are prevented from exporting directly to Russia because of a European Union trade embargo imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and “deliberate destabilisation of a neighbouring sovereign country”.
Despite the embargo Norwegian salmon has found its way to Russia after being processed in neighbouring Belarus – until Wednesday, when Rosselkhoznadzor banned the salmon for allegedly containing gentian violet, which is banned in food products.
