Europe has again begun to revise regulations on benzopyrene, which threatens traditional smoking methods in Latvia. Latvia is one of the few EU countries where meat, fish and cheeses are still smoked in the traditional way – using wood smoke, writes Latvijas Avīze. For this traditional method, Latvia has already once achieved an exception in the EU bodies as for products produced for the internal market . Meanwhile, in other European countries, flavorings are widely used for smoking. There are also manufacturers in Latvia who use them. This time, it is objections to the use of flavorings that threaten to lead to new bans on smoked meats. “Our ancestors smoked for centuries and lived long and healthy,” says Silāres Gaļsaimnieks owner Ivo Kulmanis, commenting on concerns about potential health risks when consuming smoked meat and fish. “If the European Commission introduces more stringent requirements for smoked products, then we can forget about classic sprats,” says Arnolds Babris, co-owner of the Brīvais Vilnis fish processing plant. Currently, the permissible limit for benzopyrene content in smoked fish is 5 milligrams per kilogram, in smoked meat – 30 milligrams. As already reported, the Ministry of Agriculture does not support the sudden desire of the European Commission (EC) to review the derogations granted to member states of the European Union (EU) and currently in force for traditionally smoked meat and fish products that are intended for sale on the market in these states. Also, the Ministry of Agriculture does not support the revision of the maximum permissible levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons for smoked products intended for distribution in other EU member states. At the moment, the EC wants to reduce the maximum permissible levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons for smoked products sold by Latvian producers in other EU countries. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, this will harm Latvian producers and put them in unequal conditions of competition with other producers of smoked meats. The Ministry is actively working to maintain the derogations in force in Latvia, allowing the use of certain flavorings for the preparation of traditionally smoked pork, hot smoked chicken, hot sausages smoked meat, hot-smoked game and hot-smoked fish. At the end of June, a new EU regulation regarding the non-renewal of authorizations for the use of eight smoke flavors in the production of smoked meats was due to come into force. The fact is that the European Food Safety Authority has recognized them as potentially hazardous to human health. Latvia, together with some other EU member states, has achieved a longer transition period of five years – until 1 July 2029. At this time, entrepreneurs involved in the circulation of products will be able to use flavorings for smoking. If no new flavors are developed by the end of the transition period in 2029, manufacturers will be able to return to traditional wood smoke smoking methods to maintain the traditional taste of smoked meats. The possible replacement of smoke flavorings by traditional smoking methods was the reason for the EC's unexpected decision to urgently review maximum levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in fish smoking and reintroduce them for smoked cheeses. At the moment, Latvia, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden have derogations for traditionally smoked meat products, and for smoked fish – Latvia, Finland and Sweden.
