31 October 2018 - The Director of the Directorate for Food Safety, Veterinary Medicine and Phytosanitary Affairs, Vesna Daković, said that food safety system in Montenegro is at a very high level and that Montenegrin citizens and tourists as well have high-quality and safe food at their disposal.
She explains, however, that the public often identifies terms “safety” and “quality” of the food although they are different categories.
“A product can be safe in the context of health but it might not correspond to the defined parameters of quality and vice-versa. Some product might be meeting the standards of quality but, at the same time, it might not be safe for use since it contains unauthorized substances, the surplus of certain types of matters, or some microbiological changes occurred due to inappropriate preservation,” says Daković.
As far as the segment of food safety is concerned, we should bear in mind that safety is provided in the complex chain of food production and food distribution, also known as “from the field to the table”.
“In order to have safe food, first and foremost, we must have healthy animals and plants. In that sense, it is necessary to fulfill measures and requirements stipulated by veterinary and sanitary policy. If for example, there’s the processing of the primary product, hygienic conditions must be provided in every single phase of that process,” said Daković.
According to the regulations, the producers and those who place the food at the markets shall be responsible for its safety.
“The control of every process is a must. Every country has its own control system but at the conceptual level, it works the same everywhere: we get safe, high-quality food intended for the consumers’ needs from healthy animals and plants, with appropriate hygienic conditions and requirements for food preservation,” concluded Daković.
She points out that Directorate for Food Safety, Veterinary Medicine and Phytosanitary Affairs, via inspection competent in all of the three areas, controls food safety in the entire chain, from the production until it gets to our tables. Although the number of inspectors, 24 of them, is not optimal, they are dedicated and work hard and the results they achieve are excellent. In the three months time, more than 70 thousand EUR of fines have been imposed.
