Although 54 products of 22 companies were discovered to falsely claim organic origin and warned to remove the misleading labels, only two of them have actually complied, the executive director of Bulgarian National Consumers Association (BNCA), Bogomil Nikolov, told The Sofia Echo on February 29.

The campaign is called ‘No to the fake bio foods!’ and is conducted by BNCA in cooperation with Bioselena foundation for organic agriculture. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation provided the financing.

BNCA sent letters to the producers, which have put the labels “biological”, “ecological”, “organic”, “bio” or “eco” on their plant on animal food products’ packages, even though those foodstuffs did not certificates biological production.

Only the company Fama from Dobrich agreed to remove the label “eco” from its yoghurt box Rosa. The firm Yaitsa and Ptitsi from the town of Mizia presented a written statement affirming that it cancelled its fake “eco” label from the fresh eggs it sells on the market.

According to the Bulgarian legislation, the biological production is labelled on the food products by using the words “biological”, “ecological”, “organic”, “bio” or “eco”. The main requirement is the product to be indeed produced by a certified producer of biological products and in a biological manner.

Most of the companies, which received the warning letters BNCA sent, did not undertake any measures, Bioselena said. The national veterinary-sanitary service also did checks and informed BNCA by a letter for those measures. Most of the companies received prescripts to stop using misleading labelling on their packaging.

Zorov-91 and Zorov-97 companies, producing milk and yoghurt products under the  Purshevitsa brand, both received prescripts. BBC Handel, which produces Elena brand yoghurt also received order to remove the fake label “ecologically clean product”. LB Bulgaricum, producer of Elbi yoghurt, received a prescript, as well as Misia Milk for its white cheese brand Abela.

Eco-F from the village of Karabunar in Pazardzhik municipality produces white and yellow cheese labelled as “bioproduct”. The veterinary authorities’ check found out that this company did not produce any cheese in 2007, while Bioselena claimed it bought such cheese in Sofia in August 2007 and in February 2008. Bioselena said it would keep on watching the market for fake bio products by this firm.

Deya, owner of milk processing plant Opitsvet, received prescript for fake labelling of its yoghurt and milk, while Agrobusiness from the village of Polikraishte received the order to remove the fake labels from its eggs marked as “eco”.

Bioselena is an authorised organisation, which can award certificates for bio production to the food producers and the agriculture developers in Bulgaria. The foundation also said that it expected the Regional Inspectorates on Environment and Water Affairs to undertake the needed measures for limiting the fake bio labels.