Children's Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese Did Not Meet Established Requirements: Food Safety Authority

The Armenian Food Safety Inspection Authority received alerts on July 8 from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention regarding incidents of poisoning among children at the development centers of "Winnie Pooh and Friends" LLC and "Rainbow" LLC in Yerevan, resulting from consuming sour cream and cottage cheese of the "Biokat" brand. The affected children were transported to the Infectious Disease Prevention Center in Norq and Muratsan Medical Center. Reports of deteriorating health after consuming the same dairy products also emerged from other citizens.

By the orders of the head of the Food Safety Authority, monitoring measures, including inspections, commenced at the mentioned kindergartens as well as at "Biokat" LLC. Samples were taken from the foods and dairy products available in the kindergartens and sent for laboratory examination. All dairy products produced by "Biokat" on July 7 and 8 were recalled from the sales network and supply points.

Laboratory tests conducted at the Republican Veterinary and Sanitary-Epidemiological Laboratory of the Food Safety Authority revealed that the samples of cottage cheese and sour cream did not meet the standards of the Eurasian Economic Union's technical regulations regarding indicators for E. coli, MAFAM, golden staphylococcus, and various molds. The investigation also uncovered that the dairy products delivered to the children’s development centers operated by "Winnie Pooh and Friends" LLC and "Rainbow" LLC were transported using the same vehicle, which was reported to be malfunctioning and not cooling properly. Inspections at "Biokat" LLC are ongoing, and certain functions of dairy production will be suspended.