Minister Barbu: Romanian farmers produce quality chickens

  The Romanian farmers produce quality chicken, and 40% of the chicken meat goes to France, which means it is of quality, stated on Friday the minister of agriculture, Florin Barbu, asked about the scandal of the ‘ painted chicken’.He added that, in his opinion, the competent control institutions involved should present to the public the certificate and the results of the analyses they have done in laboratories for this type of chicken.   The Minister of Agriculture visited on Friday, together with the manager of the University Emergency Hospital Bucharest, Catalin Cirstoiu, the candidate of the PSD-PNL Coalition for the elections for the Mayor of Bucharest, the fair to promote Romanian products in the courtyard of Agriculture ministry.   The president of the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC), Horia Constantinescu, warned on Wednesday about the marketing of "yellowed" chickens to appear healthier, saying he would inform all institutions that can verify how this situation came about.   "We are facing a serious attack on the safety of each and every one of us: chickens yellowed to look better, stuffed with dangerous strains of salmonella. This is what I call a 'tasty' dish. Today, we will send information to absolutely every institution that can verify how this situation came about and who covered up the truth," the ANPC chief wrote on his Facebook page.   On the same day, the vice-president of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA), Danut Pale, underlined that public outbursts about food safety without waiting for the analyses from authorised laboratories only create a problem for the authorities, consumers and the poultry farming industry in Romania. "It really created a tremendous emotional state, but unfortunately these are the practices. The yellow chicken has been around since the bird first appeared on earth. In this area, for some time now, the method of breeding has changed. Indeed, both natural pigments that we find in maize and alfalfa, but also synthetic pigments that give that yellow colour, but which have been approved by the regulatory authority and are used in bird feed (...) These are regulated things, normal things, probably now some institutions have discovered this. If he (ANPC president n.r.) knows that there is this danger, he had the possibility, because he is part of the European alert system, to take samples, to raise in that alert system and then all the institutions were notified, especially ANSVSA, and a very well regulated protocol was put in place, with the blocking of those products, with controls from the farm to the economic agent who put such products on sale", explained on Wednesday the ANSVSA vice-president.