Watchdog slams Seventh Continent grocer over food safety

Russia's consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor criticized Russian grocery chain Seventh Continent on Tuesday for failure to eliminate food hygiene violations. "Seventh Continent is not taking effective measures to remedy the situation, even though the violations that have been exposed are obvious, which gives grounds for presuming that this trade chain is unreliable," Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement. Rospotrebnadzor received 184 complaints from customers about breaches of sanitary rules and consumer rights in Seventh Continent stores in Moscow in 2010. Unscheduled checks held by the watchdog confirmed that the customers' complaints were legitimate. Inspections held early this year exposed similar violations, the watchdog said. "In each instance, Rospotrebnadzor exposed breaches related to the sale of food products failing to comply with the obligatory requirements of quality and safety, misinformation of customers about the price and the weight of these products, and also violation of the rules on selling particular types of goods," the watchdog added. Seventh Continent told RIA Novosti it was complying with the watchdog’s instructions. "The statement does not specify the violations which the company has failed to eliminate and therefore we are not ready to answer promptly. The company is complying with the regulations and as soon as we receive additional information from the watchdog, we'll additionally check our stores for compliance," Seventh Continent said in a statement.