19 dangerous substances discovered in tomatoes: “Turkish ones are sold as being from Italy”

The dangerous substances were discovered in imported tomatoes bought from a supermarket in Bucharest and in tomatoes brought from Italy on stalls in a market in Craiova.

Turkish and Italian tomatoes contain dangerous substances. No less than 19 dangerous substances were discovered in Turkish tomatoes bought in an Italian supermarket, and another 13 in Italian tomatoes in a market in Craiova.

“There are 19 substances in the tomatoes from Turkey, and 13 in the Italian ones. Being practically the same substances, almost the same treatments in both cases, the laboratory concluded that the tomatoes full of pesticides from Italy would actually be from Turkey. Why? Probably because Italian tomatoes were talked about as being cleaner, they are from the intra-Community space, they are more controlled compared to those coming from the extra-Community space. And then, as a marketing method, the Turkish ones are sold as being from Italy.

We would not be surprised if the tomatoes sold now at high prices, as Romanian, are Turkish. Take them for 5 lei per kilogram from the source and sell them for 50 lei per kilogram. It is an extraordinary profit. The tested tomatoes were bought from the market and from the supermarket in different parts of the country. Same substances, same treatments. ANSVSA is based on the laboratory in Bulgaria, which does all the analysis for what comes in in the intra-community space, outside the European Union. We think that if he stopped by the lab, everything is wonderful. I saw that it is not. You go to the shelf, or to the market, and you don’t know what to buy at this moment.” says Andreea Stroe, director of “Agrojournal” at Digi24.

ANSVSA says that for the time being it is based on these analyses, if it is about imports, there are many products, millions of products on the market, there is no way to test them all.

The problem is that ANSVSA does not have enough people, and this aspect needs to be regulated much better, in terms of product traceability.

The next analyzes will be on Romanian tomatoes, this after Romanian producers accused the press that their vegetables are full of pesticides.