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The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) examined single-fruit jams and preserves, focusing particularly on their safety, verification of prescribed minimum quantity of fruit ingredients, quality, and correct labelling.

The inspectors took a total of 13 samples of various products, mainly at producers and central suppliers. Six products (i.e. 46%) failed to comply with relevant regulations, while in some cases the Inspection Authority found more deficiencies at the same products.

Some samples did not contain prescribed minimum quantity of fruit ingredients, on the packaging of other samples producers displayed greater amount of fruits than the product really contained. In other cases, information on the presence of another kind of fruit, or country of origin was missing on the packaging. One of the jams was mislabelled because information on the label gave a false impression that the product was made entirely from apricots. However, the list of ingredients stated that only 20% is contained in the product.

Both Czech and European regulations allow using sorbic acid in the production of jams, but only in the case of products with reduced sugar content. In spite of this, information about the presence of sorbic acid was not displayed on the packaging of one of these jams. To the contrary, two strawberry jams from Greece were assessed by the Inspection Authority as unsafe because they contained sorbic acid but were not products with reduced sugar content.

The inspection results have repeatedly confirmed that producers of single-fruit jams and preserves still have problems with correct labelling of their products. Consumers are thus ill-informed in many cases about what they really buy. For this reason, the Food Inspection Authority will repeat inspections with such a focus also this year.

Summary of inspected products can be found on CAFIA website at www.szpi.gov.cz in the Press Releases section (in czech version).