Republic Food Safety Inspection Service has been intensely monitoring products that are sold as a substitute for cheese in the last few days, focusing on the information for of consumers about the content of the product.

On-site inspections found that traders label names of products on price tags in a way that is misleading to customers. Namely, traders put the term “cheese” on price tags as the name of the product despite the declaration of the product clearly stating that it is not a product 100% made out of milk.

These are the products which name and content are clearly labeled on the packaging, like creamy spreads, cheese substitute of plant origin, as well as different kinds of processed cheese and plant fat slices, which have wrong information on price tags, not aligned with the information that is on the declaration of the product.

Products declared as creamy spreads and plant-based substitute for cheese by the manufacturer are listed as cheese on price tags by the store traders. Therefore, the name of the product on the price tag in front of the product is not aligned with the original label of the product on the packaging, which can mislead a customer.

The total of 83 inspections resulted in 45 issued decisions on correction of irregularities, and penalties in the amount of 86,200 KM. During the process of control of stores, the traders are ordered to correct the irregularities by changing the name under which the product is sold so the customers were not mislead during the purchase, which as a rule traders are required to do on spot by the law.

The Law on Food states that a business, while working with food during the business operation which is under their oversight, is not allowed to change information that accompanies food if such changes would mislead the end consumer or otherwise decrease the consumer protection or their options to choose the food on the basis of information.