Safe meat: Consumers’ protection union calls on government and
businessmen to build modern slaughterhouses

Social | 01.07.11 | 14:06

NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow

By Siranuysh Gevorgyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Consumer Rights Protection NGO expert Victor Abrahamyan considers it
very alarming that the slaughter of animals in Armenia customarily
takes place in `yard conditions’ and not at special slaughter-houses
as it was the case during Soviet times.

`Yard slaughter is fraught with the danger of spreading various
infections,’ Abrahamyan stressed at a press conference on Friday,
adding that animal slaughter is mainly carried out without
professional supervision, in unsanitary conditions.

The expert says that slaughterhouses need to be established so that
the slaughter of animals be not only safe, but also profitable, since,
as he put it, `in slaughterhouses only animals’ mooing and bellowing
is lost.’

`During slaughter in yard conditions the slaughtered animal’s
intestines are thrown to dogs, while useful things can be made of it,
such as insulin from animal pancreas, and in [house conditions] it is
not used,’ said Abrahamyan.

The Consumers Rights Protection NGO, aiming to improve the meat and
meat products safety situation in Armenia, has launched a multimedia
campaign as part of the `Support for the Development of
Slaughterhouses in Armenia’ program, which is being implemented with
the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization and with the funding of the Greek government.

Abrahamyan urged businesspeople to build slaughterhouses, saying that
it will cost 30,000-50,000 to build a slaughterhouse, while under the
program a businessman will get equipment for the facility free of
charge.

Besides the problem of the absence of slaughterhouses, specialists
single out the issue of unhygienic transportation and sale of meat and
meat products and a faulty application of the legislation in this
regard. Selling meat without refrigeration for the first time is
penalized with a fine of up to 50,000 drams (about $135), while a
repeat offense entails a fine of up to 300,000 drams (more than $800).