Meat sealed at Batumi market after violations of sanitary regulations

The National Food Agency of Georgia has sealed 2.5 tonnes of meat at the Batumi produce market in western Georgia’s Black Sea city, with the Agency revealing on Monday the move had followed violations of sanitary regulations, identified by professionals.

Conditions of meat storage and sale at the relevant facilities were checked in the monitoring, with the state body saying some of the facilities had met requirements established by regulation.

However, in some of them inconsistencies such as violation of sanitary and hygienic norms, and sale of meat without veterinary marks were revealed, which means cattle was slaughtered through bypassing slaughterhouses", the Agency said.

The meat sealed in the checks was disposed under the supervision of the Agency inspection team and the Ministry of Agriculture of Adjara, with relevant business operators fined and their production process suspended, the Agency said.

The National Food Agency inspected about 800 facilities - including slaughterhouses and meat sales facilities - across the country between January-August, and sealed about 10,000 kg of meat in cases of violations of regulations.