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The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority identified very poor quality of potatoes sold at the market during inspections carried out in January and February this year. For this reason an extraordinary inspection was ordered to be performed in the entire retail market all over the territory of the Czech Republic in March.

The inspectors took 441 samples of table potatoes, of which 201 batches (i.e. 45.6 %) did not comply with the required quality. The most frequently occurring non-conformances that the inspectors identified were colour changes to the flesh of potatoes (greyish almost black colour), then dry and wet rot, and mechanical damage of the potato tubers and wrong labelling.

The inspection also found out considerable differences in quality of the sold potatoes in the individual regions of the country. The outcome of the extraordinary inspections performed in central and western Bohemia was almost identical with the annually recorded results. Much worse situation was identified in northern, eastern and southern Moravia where the percentage of non-conforming batches was between 48 and 57 per cent.

CAFIA imposed a ban on the sale of non-conforming batches in the value of almost 222 thousand Czech crowns. The Inspectorate proposed to impose 146 penalties in the instituted Administrative actions in the total value of 672 thousand Czech crowns.

The inspections also showed up that some salesmen repeatedly tried to sell their potatoes of poor quality at the spring market. In some cases inspectors identified the non-conforming potatoes in the same salesmen already in 1999 and 2000. CAFIA, therefore, considers increasing the penalties imposed in order to force the sellers to comply with regulations currently in force.

The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority will pay intensified attention to the control of quality of potatoes sold at the market.