The Food and Veterinary Service rightly imposed a fine of 700 euros on the Vilnius company "Baltic Foods", which sells meat and its products, for importing and selling salmonella-contaminated chicken, the court decided.
On January 15, the Vilnius Chamber of the Regional Administrative Court rejected the company's complaint in which it requested the cancellation of the fine.
"The applicants (Baltic Foods - BNS) (...) had the duty to ensure the safety of their food product supplied to the market. The arguments of the applicant's complaint that she is not responsible for placing an unsafe product on the market, because she did not manufacture the product and was not the first to present an unsafe product on the market, are groundless," the court ruling reads.
In May 2021, the agency selected frozen chicken fillet samples from the wholesale company "Abela". After testing them, it was found that the meat was infected with salmonella, so it was forbidden to sell it.
On the same day, the service checked Baltic Foods, from which Abela purchased the chicken. It was established that "Baltic Foods" 3,68 thousand kilograms of unsafe chicken was purchased from Poland by Drobex, which was later sold to Biovela-Utena meat and Abela. For this, Baltic Foods was fined 700 euros.
"Baltic Foods" argued in court that it did not commit a violation: it did not produce the chicken itself, it did not violate the conditions of its transportation and storage, and its producer, the Polish "Drobex", is responsible for this.
However, according to the service, Baltic Foods did not ensure that its food product was safe.
The court's decision can still be appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.
"Baltic Foods" has been fined for salmonella-contaminated products before - the company imported 3,9 tons of contaminated fillets from Hungary and 2,4 tons of contaminated chicken legs from Romania to Lithuania in January 2020. In June of the same year, the agency drew up violation protocols to Baltic Foods, but imposed a fine of 700 euros for this only in December 2022.
As a result, a dispute arose in court, last June it was established that "Baltic Foods" was correctly but belatedly fined for importing salmonella-contaminated poultry, so it does not have to pay a fine of 700 euros.
In addition, in December 2019, the service found that the company had imported 60 kilograms of contaminated poultry meat to Lithuania from Poland - then the company was fined 300 euros.
The author is Erika Alonderytė-Kazlauskė
