What to Pay Attention to When Buying Sausages: 'Hayastani Hanrapetutyun'

‘Hayastani Hanrapetutyun’ newspaper writes: ‘By following the presented steps, the consumer can easily navigate when purchasing sausages. The first step concerns whether the name of the sausage includes a label specifying its group (meat, containing meat, etc.) and type (sausage, semi-finished, etc.). If the packaging of the sausage is labeled as meat-based, then the mass fraction of meat components cannot be less than 60 percent. An example is given with the semi-smoked sausage ‘Krakovian’, where the group is meat-based, pork is 40%, beef is 20%, chicken is 10%, and 5% is pork fat. The mass fraction of meat is 75 percent. On the other hand, if the sausage packaging is labeled as containing meat, the mass fraction of meat components should be between 5-60 percent (inclusive). The Competition Protection Commission also provides correct and incorrect examples of sausage group and type labeling. For instance, if the product is labeled as ‘boiled sausage’ and nothing else, this is considered incorrect labeling because there is information about the type of meat product—boiled sausage—but there is no information regarding its group—whether it is meat-based or containing meat, etc. Correct labeling is considered if the meat product group is indicated as frozen meat and the type is raw-smoked sausage.

Let’s move to the second step. Is the food composition labeled on the sausage packaging and in what order? The packaging must necessarily label the composition, for example, chicken meat, pork fat, potato starch, cooking salt, etc. The ingredients should be listed in the decreasing order of their mass fraction at the time of food production.’ Detailed information can be found in today’s newspaper issue.