CONSUMER PROTECTION AND FALSIFICATION OF FOOD PRODUCTS SOLD IN THE SVERDLOVSK REGION

Abstract

The year 2014 is characterized by the worsening of the economic situation in Russia, which negatively affected consumer activity of citizens and provokes an increase in violations of consumers’ rights in certain sectors of the consumer market of food products. In this regard, the research on identifying violations in the consumer market of food products on the territory of the Sverdlovsk region has been conducted. In 2014 the number of inspections decreased in 1.2 times compared with 2013. It has been established that the main causes of complaints was as follows: the sale of goods not conforming to the requirements of normative documents, the provision of services of inadequate quality, the lack of adequate and reliable information about products, violation of terms of service performance period, the inclusion of terms infringing consumers’ rights in the contract. The system of organs involved in the protection of consumers’ rights in the Sverdlovsk region revealed about 71.5 thousand violations (82.7 thousand violations in 2013). In 2014, there were 3 violations per a check, which is above 1.1 times in comparison with 2013. Compared with 2013 the proportion of defective meat products increased by 1.1 times, dairy products by 2.6 times, fish products by 1.3 times, bakery products by 1.3 times, confectionery products by 1.4 times. According to the criteria of falsification the proportion of poor samples of canned meat increased by 1.5 times and amounted to 65.5%; that of sausage products by 1.1 times and amounted to 64.3% ; and that of frozen chicken meat by 1.6 times and amounted to 31.3%. It has been found out that the goods most often subjected to counterfeiting are sausages, canned meat, frozen chicken and milk chocolate.

Keywords

• consumer market
• food
• falsification
• consumers’ rights protection