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In 2012 the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) launched highly wanted service for consumers – the website potravinynapranyri.cz. During 10 years CAFIA has informed consumers of 5,752 lots of non-compliant foodstuffs, of which 2,664 were unsafe, 1,690 were adulterate and 1,398 were of poor quality.

This is a unique project in Europe as regards promptness with which information is made available to consumers and the level of detail - name, producer, lot, seller, type of fault and photo documentation are provided for each food item.

With 200,000 unique visitors in the first 24 hours displaying over 4 million items, the interest of consumers has been extraordinary from the start. It was consumers’ votes that awarded the project the Czech Internet award “Crystal Magnifying Glass” and the Mobile App of the Year award.

"During its ten years operation, the Food Pillory and all its versions have become an integral part of domestic food market helping consumers with making informed decisions and cultivating both producers and retailers," the Minister of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, Zdeněk Nekula said.

"Despite initial rejection by some operators, Food Pillory is respected and used by operators themselves, among other things, to monitor the situation on the market," Martin Klanica, CAFIA Director General, emphasised.

CAFIA is continuously extending the project with many offshoots. In 2013 the Authority launched a mobile application, which has been downloaded by 71,000 users for Android and iOS (and previously also Windows) operating systems. In addition to the overview of inspection findings, consumers can submit suggestions for inspection here as well.

Consumers can also find information on compliant foodsuffs here since 2013, namely in Thematic controls section. Here CAFIA releases results of finished inspection activities together with a summary of all compliant and non-compliant samples.

Since 2015 CAFIA has been responsible for supervision over public catering establishments (restaurants, cafés, fast foods, etc.) and in that year, CAFIA opened section Closed establishments on Food Pillory. Detailed information on establishments that have been closed by CAFIA for unacceptable hygiene conditions is available there.

With the Food Pillory project, CAFIA also focuses on younger consumers who prefer communication on online social networks. CAFIA therefore launched its Food Pillory account on Facebook (36,500+ followers) and Twitter (5,200+ followers) in 2014, and on Instagram (c. 2,000 followers) in 2016.

For many years and with increasing intensity CAFIA has been checking online forms of sales, in particular e-shops, sales via social networks, online bazaars, etc. In 2019 CAFIA launched section called Risky websites where consumers are warned of e-shops that seriously violate Czech and EU legislation and which are usually located outside the EU, and according to legislation applicable so far, it was not possible to take corresponding measures against them.

The amendment to the Act on Foodstuffs (No. 146/2002 Coll.) effective since 1 October 2022 enables CAFIA to order blocking of websites offering unsafe foodstuffs or with content that seriously violates legislation. Blocking must be carried out by all internet providers in the Czech Republic by no later than 15 days since the website has been placed on the "list of blocked websites". These websites will be listed, inter alia, in the Food Pillory section “Risky websites” together with specification that they are blocked in the Czech Republic.

The authority to order blocking of such websites will help to respond to lasting problems when operators of websites registered outside the EU were able to target at domestic consumers by offering goods in Czech language for Czech crowns and sending it to the Czech Republic, and absence of a measure forcing them to comply with Czech and EU legislation. Significant number of domestic consumers have complained about infringements of their rights through complaints.

Article by: Mgr. Pavel Kopřiva – CAFIA Spokesperson, phone: +420 542 426 633   

20^th September 2022