The controls by the veterinary and food safety inspectors in the non-animal origin food sector targeted operators in the food industry operating in areas such as flour milling, bread and pastry products, other food products, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, vegetables, and fruits.

The county Veterinary and Food Safety Directorates, as well as the one in Bucharest Municipality, conducted 10,839 inspections in agri-food units.

As a result of the identified irregularities and violations of food safety legislation, 173 administrative sanctions were applied, totaling 1,244,300 lei.

The nationwide verification actions, based on the Supervision and Control Program for 2023, focused on aspects related to compliance by food operators with conditions for registration, authorization, and operation of units, maintenance and hygiene of spaces where food products are handled, processing and storage conditions of raw materials and finished products, traceability requirements, labeling, pest control, record-keeping, and information on risk analysis implementation (HACCP system).

The inspections carried out by ANSVSA inspectors primarily focus on prevention and advising food industry operators.

Administrative sanctions are applied when initially identified deficiencies were not remedied within the established time frame or endanger consumer health.

As a result of the inspections, several irregularities were found, including:

• Non-compliance with good hygiene and manufacturing practices, such as lack of hygienic maintenance of storage spaces, inadequate maintenance of production areas, lack of changing rooms and sanitary facilities for employees, insufficient stocks of substances intended for disinfection operations, failure to carry out pest control in accordance with specific food industry legislation.
• Non-compliance related to ensuring traceability and conformity of food products (labeling, analysis reports with unsatisfactory results, inadequate packaging, food products with organoleptic changes).
• Non-compliance regarding monitoring and implementation of procedures based on HACCP principles.
• Non-compliance related to labor personnel (lack of skills records, failure to attend hygiene courses, failure to certify the health status of personnel).
• Other types of non-compliance such as unregistered sanitary-veterinary and food safety activities, failure to comply with requirements for importing food products, failure to initiate product recall procedures, failure to remove non-compliant products from shelves, transportation of food with unregistered sanitary-veterinary and food safety means.

During the inspections conducted in agri-food units, samples were taken for laboratory analysis, following the procedures and instructions from the Supervision and Control Program, aiming to verify the conformity of food products, their quality compliance within maximum allowed limits, presence of pesticide residues, contaminants, and other prohibited substances in food.