Posted on 10/13/2013 11:37:08 PM PDT by TexGrill
Katelyn Fossett / Foreign PolicyYou may not have heard of Gennady Onishchenko, but if his own accounts are to be believed, he’s the Russian government official who single-handedly averts major public health crises posed by foreign countries’ dangerously lax and unsophisticated food safety standards (including those in a certain country where the federal government has ground to a halt). To others, Onishchenko, Russia’s chief sanitary inspector, is also Russia’s chief manufacturer of elaborate food safety scares to wage geopolitically motivated trade wars with other countries, particularly former Soviet republics.
On Wednesday, Onishchenko, the director of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer-protection agency, announced a ban on 28 Georgian alcoholic products, a mere seven months after a 2006 ban on Georgian beverages was lifted. Last week, he added Lithuanian dairy products to the long list of (mostly) ex-Soviet state-made products that ostensibly threaten Russian consumers. Further down on that list are Ukrainian chocolates, Moldovan wine, and—yes—meat from the United States. Notably, many of these bans came on the heels of warming trade relations between the banned countries and NATO or the European Union—moves that aren’t popular with the Kremlin, which is trying to strong-arm its neighbors into joining a Russian-led customs union.
Onishchenko feels strongly about the value of eating Russian food—and only Russian food. At a press briefing earlier this year, he implored Russians to suppress their hankering for foreign foods in favor of “food patriotism.”
(Excerpt) Read more at the-japan-news.com ...
And yet they are importing Borjomi again after many years.
>>>>And yet they are importing Borjomi again after many years.<<<<<
Georgian wines are back too. It seems like Saakashvili was a problem. Russian sanitary officials are now rewarding businesses who are backing a Georgian opposition.
The Russians hate it that Georgia wants to go western.
My other love is Nabeghlavi mineral water in case you ever get a chance to try it. Borjomi is over-rated I think.
Georgian wines are different. Some 90% exports are really bad, so Onischenko had a point to back his political agenda. The rest 10% are superb. Hwanchkara probably a single semi-sweet wine in the world I can drink.
“At a press briefing earlier this year, he implored Russians to suppress their hankering for foreign foods in favor of “food patriotism.””
I wonder if he wants to complete the nostalgic experience by having people stand in queue for several hours in order to get a loaf of bread?
Agriculture has improved too much since the end of planned economy.
Starting from 2007 Russia exports more wheat than it imports (for the first time since 1913).
A market economy has somehow fixed a century of bad weather.
Do you remember when the Russians bulldozed all the Georgian wine and Borjomi?
Of course, I do.
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