Food

A Black Market for Tainted Meat Is Flourishing in Ukraine

Things haven’t been going well for Ukraine lately. Last March, its Crimea Peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia; shortly thereafter, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over pro-Russian separatist territory; and as a result of skirmishes along its border with Russia, over 6,000 people have been killed since last April. To add insult (and possibly more injury) to injury, a recent investigation into the country’s black market for meat has revealed that tainted beef, pork, and chicken are being trafficked into the country and fed to both schoolchildren and hospital patients.

READ: Ukraine Is in Crisis, But You Can Still Get Knockoff McDonald’s at Kiev’s Worst Restaurant

The investigation, conducted by the Washington, DC-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and reported on by the Kyiv Post, uncovered a complex web of corruption that has facilitated the import of unsafe meat products. The meats come from various sources, but one of the worst offenders is a plant in northwestern Germany, near the Netherlands border. Former plant workers were interviewed by German television station ARD, and told reporters that while working at the plant, they were ordered to mix spoiled ground chicken—typically waste products from other meat plants—into fresh chicken. The unappetizing product of such practices was then sold in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Workers told reporters that when they complained, they were fired.

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“One ton of bad meat is mixed with three tons of normal meat,” the workers told the TV reporters.

According to the Kyiv Post article, the company that owns the German plant, Trinity Gmbh, has a website that features a Russian language-version, in an apparent attempt to reach regional buyers. The gambit apparently worked; OCCRP’s reporting uncovered dozens of permits for meat imports from Trinity to Ukraine.

One Ukrainian meat processing plant in Kharkiv bought chicken from Trinity between 2010 and 2013. Now out of business, the plant’s former leadership is a clear example of how politics and shady business dealings often mix in Ukraine. According to the OCCRP, the Kharkiv plant was co-owned by Volodymyr Skorobahach, a member of the city council. Under his leadership the Post reports, Kharkiv’s plant became one of the largest importers of meat to Ukraine.

Friedrich Titgemeyer, a professor of microbiology at the Münster University of Applied Sciences, tested meat from Trinity—the German plant that exported to Kharkiv—and found a host of problems with it.

“We have found a lot of microbes, especially intestinal bacteria,” Titgemeyer told the Post. “We have found things that can make us sick,” including decomposed fats indicating the meat was spoiled.

While the Kharkiv plant is now closed, other apparently corrupted Ukrainian meat processing plants continue their operations. VEK Kharkiv Ltd.—a different plant, founded in 2007—has made its money importing pork from Brazil, according to OCCRP findings. According to customs data obtained by organization, between January 2013 and June 2014 VEK imported 7,200 Brazilian meat products valued at $14.7 million USD. In March 2013, the import of Brazilian pork was banned in Ukraine after the country’s Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service found it contained high levels of bacteria and microorganisms. But that didn’t stop the VEK plant from importing it illegally, and much of the meat ended up in the canteens of both schools and hospitals.

In Ovrich, Ukraine, a parental committee formed to investigate the meat being served in the school cafeteria and found Brazilian pork. And in Kerch, on the Crimean Peninsula, workers at the Crimean Tuberculosis Clinic No. 1 also discovered shady Brazilian meat. Anatoly Bilyi, director of the clinic’s canteen, told the Post that in mid-2013, he returned from vacation and inventoried the canteen’s warehouse. There, he says, he found “150 kilograms of Brazilian meat plus two briquettes of beef with unclear origin, around 25 kilograms. It was in plastic, packed like frozen fish, no labels, just pressed meat.” Data on the meat’s label, the Post reports, made no mention or whether or not the meat had undergone appropriate sanitary controls.

“It’s difficult to understand what is there—pure meat, or so-called trimming,” Artur Loza, president of the Association of Pig Producers of Ukraine, told the Post. “And often you get pressed-together skin pieces, cartilage, meat, and tendons. So, this … is actually production waste,” he said.

In the spring, a raucous beer festival ordinarily takes place in Lviv, in the east of the country. For myriad reasons, it’s probably not a good idea to check it out this year. But if you do, be sure to avoid the kovbasa.