Turkish Product

[DeLaLa]

here an interesting article from 2006 if anybody wants to read :

 

Turkish Food Ban Reflects Political Concerns in Armenia

 

Turkish food has remained popular in Armenia despite the hostile diplomatic relationship, but it has been banned ostensibly for health reasons.

 

By Arpi Harutiunyan in Yerevan (CRS No. 346, 30-June-06)

 

“Don’t buy Turkish sunflower seeds,” Nelly told her friend Armine as they stood in a shop in Yerevan. “I’ve heard they cause sterility.”

 

“Are you serious? “The Turkish ones are so tasty,” said Armine, still wavering. In the end, she reconsidered, “All right, give me two packs of Armenian seeds.”

 

Fears that Turkish food products could cause various illnesses and disorders have grown into a wave of hysteria in Armenia that seems to be as least politically driven as it is based on real health concerns.

 

Officially at least, the sale of Turkish foodstuffs has been illegal since May, when the Armenian trade and economic development ministry imposed what it said would be a temporary ban on certifying food products imported from Turkey.

 

Some Turkish-made grocery products can still be found in the shops and markets, but officials say they have either been smuggled into the country, or brought in legally as part of travellers’ normal duty-free allowance.

 

At a political level, the relationship between Armenia and Turkey is coldly hostile – their shared border is sealed and they have no diplomatic relations. Ankara cut off all ties with Armenia because of that country’s role in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, with which the Turks enjoy a good relationship based on their common ethnic background.

 

Yet for the last 15 years, imported Turkish foodstuffs – transported via Georgia - have continued to account for a sizeable chunk of groceries sales in Armenia.

 

There seems to be little scientific reason to single Turkish foodstuffs out now, since many of the problems - variable standards and some cases of contamination - apply to domestic products and other imports.

 

Officials in Armenia deny they are singling out Turkish products. But government officials and consumers’ rights groups have mounted a concerted campaign culminating in the certification ban and calls for a boycott.

 

The state agency for state quality control concluded this year that some Turkish goods “violated consumers’ rights” and were at variance with Armenian law.

 

Trade ministry spokesperson Anahit Khechoian said the move to bar Turkish products was prompted mainly by customer complaints about “suspicious foodstuffs of unknown origin”. But the ministry has also offered another explanation – that the ban is to prevent the spread of the deadly bird flu virus.

 

A non-government organisation called Protection of Consumers’ Rights claimed to have found that five out of ten food imports they tested - nine from Turkey and one from Iran - contained harmful ingredients. In particular, the group said it discovered bacilli in some products and unacceptable levels of yeast in others.

 

Biochemist Anahit Davtyan says bacteria get into foodstuffs made in unhygienic conditions or stored at the wrong temperature, and can cause dysentery and other infectious diseases including typhoid.

 

Abgar Yeghoyan, the head of Protection of Consumers’ Rights, made dark hints that contamination could be introduced deliberately by Armenia’s enemies.

 

“Food safety is one element of national security,” he said. “Given the region we live in and the laws we have, there’s no guarantee we won’t be poisoned.”

 

The head of the trade ministry’s standards office, Robert Dayan, suggested that the gap left by “questionable” Turkish imports would be filled by “high-quality Armenian goods”.

 

Some consumer advocates, though, say Armenian-made products need closer inspection as well, since many lack proper labelling and have quality problems.

 

“We’ve been talking incessantly about the foodstuff safety problem, but the first thing we should worry about is the local produce,” said Armen Poghosyan, who leads the Consumers’ Association. “If I were to assess the extent to which food safety is guaranteed on the Armenian market, I’d say quite seriously that there are virtually no guarantees.”

 

In one recent incident in early in June, bottles of an Armenian brand of mineral water suddenly started exploding one after another in a Yerevan shop. Customers and sales staff rushed out of the shop to avoid the flying glass. In this case the problems was traced to faulty bottle manufacture.

 

Poghosyan’s association says that a study conducted in November 2005 found that 64 per cent of locally-produced food items lacked proper information about contents, nutritional value and expiry date.

 

Rather than deal with wider quality problems, officials may have found it simpler to blame Turkish imports because of underlying emotive issues about the country’s politics.

 

One indication of this was a recent scandal in which it was claimed that a brand of Turkish chocolate on sale in the shops was actually being made by a subsidiary based in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan with which Armenia is still technically in a state of war.

 

To add insult to injury, an Armenian confectionary producer ran TV advertisements warning that the offending chocolate bars contained vegetable fats, rather than milk as stated on the label.

 

Arpi Harutiunyan is a reporter at Armenianow Weekly.

[Arpa]

ԵՍ ԻՄ ԱՆՈՒՇ ՀԱՅԱՍՏԱՆԻ ԱՐԵՒԱՀԱՄ ԾԻՐԱՆՆ ԵՄ ՍԻՐՈՒՄ

 

http://ladybirds.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/apricot31.jpg

 

Never, never buy this, read the fine print before you do "product of furkey";

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B001E53WBE/ref=dp_image_z_0?ie=UTF8&n=16310101&s=grocery

What will be next? Rename the fruit “prunus osmaniaca”? Note that all those places mentioned are part of Historic Armenia.

I hate to do this, just we will see what is going on-

Turkey aims to set up global apricot council

Sunday, March 28, 2010

BETÃ`L Ã?AL

ANTALYA - Hürriyet Daily News

The supplier of 80 percent of the world's apricot production for an

annual revenue of more than $250 million, Turkey aims to establish a

World Apricot Council and an accreditation center to boost the

sector's credibility and awareness. The goal is to raise the value of

the product, according to sector players, who urge the government to

support investments in high-tech processing facilities

FRUIT: Cultivated mainly in various countries with a Mediterranean

climate, apricots flourish in the eastern Turkish city of Malatya due

to its rich soil and favorable weather conditions. Hürriyet photo

Turkey leads the world's fresh and dry apricot market with the highest

production figures in many years, but sector representatives say

revenue is lagging behind expectations due to a lack of credibility

and awareness.

Aiming to fortify its position in the market and create higher added

value, Turkey is seeking to establish and host a World Apricot Council

with the authority to set trends, boosting the country's prestige

abroad.

Apricots are cultivated mainly in various countries with a

Mediterranean climate; they flourish in the eastern Turkish city of

Malatya due to its rich soil and favorable weather conditions. In

2009, the city, which supplies around 80 percent of the world's

apricot production annually, obtained an export revenue of $276.2

million.

The amount of dry apricot processed by members of the Malatya Chamber

of Trade exceeded 200,000 tons in the same year for a value of 750

million Turkish Liras.

According to 2008 data from the Turkish Statistical Institute, or

TurkStat, Turkey produces 720,000 tons of apricot production on a

total area of 1 billion square meters. Its exports surpass those of

archrivals Spain, Italy, Iran, France and the United States.

Mehmet Å?ahin, the Malatya deputy from the ruling Justice and

Development Party, or AKP, said in a recent speech that the global

apricot market amounts to $2.5 billion per annum, adding that Turkey

should definitely grab a higher percentage of this pie.

In order to fulfill the sector aim of increasing annual apricot export

revenue to $1 billion in the near future, Å?ahin said, it is crucial to

take steps to raise the product's value internationally. The formation

of a global council, he added, is one of these steps.

Accreditation center in Malatya

Noting that Malatya's renowned apricot is not protected by laws or an

international accreditation center, sector authorities said the fruit

is undervalued.

İbrahim Bozkır, the owner of an apricot-exporting firm in Malatya,

said his company exports apricots at $2 to $3 per kilo, but retailers

abroad sell 200 to 300 grams for at least at $10.

This represents a loss of labor for the Turkish farmer and a loss of

currency and prestige for Turkey, Bozkır said, adding that it is

imperative to build a global apricot center in Turkey, with an

accreditation center in Malatya.

`It will give more professionalism and credibility to Turkey's apricot

sector,' he said.

The high sales prices of apricots in other countries is mainly

attributed to packaging expenditures. International importers tend to

buy raw apricot, either fresh or dry, process it in their facilities,

package it according to their own standards and sell it to consumers,

adding the cost of each stage to the final price.

Nejat BalmanoÄ?lu, an apricot exporter in Malatya, said Turkish

producers need high-technology apricot processing and packaging

centers.

`Fully processing this strategic product at home according to the

needs of the customer and exporting it in its final form abroad will

definitely give added value to Turkey,' he said. `As we send the raw

product abroad and let somebody else process it instead of us, we

actually are creating rivals. Also, when the intermediaries rise in

number, it directly reflects on the price.'

The government should support investments in modern facilities and

open up the path for producers and exporters, BalmanoÄ?lu said.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Arpa