Food Quality in Romania. Compliant or Not with Food Quality in Western Europe

Abstract

The quality of food sold on the Romanian market represents a topical issue, of maximum interest for the health of the population. Information regarding the existence of double production standards for food products destined to East and West European markets has become a viral issue, with a wide public debate at media level, profile faculties and research institutes, governmental and non-governmental bodies. The article proposed a comparative analysis of the media information and the CEE official’s reaction, correlated with the official results of the analysis carried out by the profile governmental bodies for the assessment of the quality of food products from the Romanian market. The results of the researches carried out have highlighted the lack of technical expertise of the national authorities, a late and improper reaction to sensitive issues at European level in the field of food products quality, linked also to discrepancies existing between G15 and the rest of the European Union, the inability of certain decisions focused on the cause of the problem analysed. The measures taken by the Romanian authorities were either late and the costs incurred for carrying out certain food analysis were useless. The lack of certain specialists’ decision-makers in the food sector, the prevalence of political decisions, based on obscure interests will still lead to discrepancies in the sector of food products marketed in Romanian stores, will increase the dependence of the domestic import market and will destroy the few companies with Romanian capital which are still active in the food sector.