Roskachestvo explored game

Experts sent for laboratory analysis canned MEAT of wild animals: wild boar, elk and deer.

Hunting grounds in RUSSIA occupy an area of ​​about 1.5 billion hectares. According to the hunting register, 46% of them are publicly available. The remaining 54% were transferred to the use of legal entities and private entrepreneurs who operate in more than 6 thousand hunting grounds.

Common places to buy bushmeat are small retail outlets, individuals (including hunters), and classifieds sites. Such meat products, as a rule, do not undergo proper veterinary and hygienic control, and therefore may pose a danger to the consumer.

Roskachestvo purchased and researched 10 brands of canned meat from wild animals (elk - 6 TM, wild boar - 3 TM, elk and deer - 1 TM) in large marketplaces Ozon, Wildberries and Yandex. Market”, online hypermarket “Perekrestok Vprok” and ad service “Avito”. Most of the goods are produced in Russia (1 TM - from Belarus) in the Tula, Vologda, Moscow regions, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Experts also purchased frozen bushmeat (not rated) to compare how safe it is compared to canned meat.

Frozen meat turned out with E. coli

Frozen meat was purchased from four retail outlets (specialized online stores). Subsequently, it turned out that the meat purchased in various stores is supplied to them by the same manufacturer (Lyubo LLC). This product is not included in the rating.

The study showed that half of the studied frozen meat does not comply with the legislation on microbiological indicators: the number of bacteria of the Escherichia coli group exceeded the requirements of the technical regulation (TR CU 034/2013). In other cases, E. coli was found within acceptable limits. It is impossible to predict which frozen meat will be unsafe when buying. In addition, there is a high risk that E. coli will "grow" even when stored at home.

Experts assured that cooking at home does not guarantee the destruction of E. coli, for example, in low-rare cutlets or carpaccio. And there is also a risk of cross-contamination when storing food in a home refrigerator.

Roskachestvo submitted information about the discrepancies to the control and supervisory authorities.

In canned food, there were no violations of microbiological parameters. However, game meat (both canned and frozen) contains more heavy metals than domestic animal meat. This is due to the instability of the feeding of wild animals, different feeding places. And although there are no excesses of the maximum permissible level, it is better to use such meat only occasionally, because heavy metals tend to accumulate in the body.

Expensive elk in canned food is partially replaced with pork fat

In the studied canned elk meat, pig DNA not declared in the labeling was found almost everywhere - in six out of seven examined goods (the method of studying the DNA of animals was carried out according to the PCR method). There are no third-party DNAs only in the canned food of the Kurgan Meat Processing Plant (Kurgan).

In canned elk "Baltic Okhota", "Dikoed" and "Moose in a jar", the fat content varies from 16 to 30%, which is not typical for elk meat, whose fat content is 1.7%. Exceeding the fat content indicates a possible deliberate addition of pork and / or lard to canned food, to save more expensive raw materials or to improve the taste of the product.

The rest of the canned elk meat (“Forest Curiosity”, “Butcher”, “OMKK”) had a fat content of 2.0–3.7% (such a low fat content is not typical for pork), which, apparently, to talk about the fact that pig DNA got into canned food in the process of contamination in production - from neighboring lines, and is accidentally found in the product in trace amounts.

Preserved wild boar are almost all flawless

Among the three studied canned wild boar meat, the products of Baltiysky MCC can claim the Russian Quality Mark. In other cases, the marking failed: components not declared by the manufacturers were found, for example, a moisture-retaining component - carrageenan (TM "Delicacy Game").

There are no antibiotics and plague viruses in game meat

What exactly is not in the game is antibiotics and veterinary drugs - no one treats wild animals. But wild animals can get sick or carry diseases that are dangerous to humans. Therefore, game meat is necessarily subject to veterinary and sanitary examination, including for the presence of pathogens of zooanthroponic infections.

All products were tested for the DNA of the African swine fever (ASF) virus, the RNA of the classical swine fever virus and for the presence of the causative agent of trichinosis. No signs of these diseases have been found either in frozen or canned meat (in canned food, for example, viruses simply will not survive after sterilization of products at 130 C).

The ASF virus has been circulating in Russia since 2008 and continues to spread, causing serious losses to the pig industry. Over 600,000 pigs died from ASF between 2007 and 2012. The total amount of damage, including indirect losses, was estimated at 30 billion rubles. Outbreaks of ASF were previously recorded in the Belogorsk district, the Republic of Crimea, in the Omsk, Kaliningrad and Tyumen regions, in 2019 - in the Amur region, in 2021 - in the Primorsky Territory.

What to look for when choosing canned game

Canned game, which are presented in stores, is produced in canneries. It is considered good form for a manufacturer to produce only a line of game products. If the plant simultaneously makes products from pork / beef / mutton, the risk of substitution or partial replacement of expensive raw materials - game meat for cheaper meat of domestic animals, increases, Roskachestvo warns.

On the lids of the jars, there must be markings: the date of manufacture of canned food, the number of the shift, the assortment number. And the label contained the necessary information: composition, nutritional value, contact details of the manufacturer and the manufacturer.

Without documents for hunting products and without a veterinary certificate, a meat processing enterprise has no right to accept raw materials, experts assure.

Vladimir Sidorchuk, Deputy HEAD of the Department for Organization of  Control and Surveillance  Activities of the Internal Veterinary Supervision Department of the Rosselkhoznadzor:  “Everything that is sold legally, delivered to shops and restaurants, can be tracked, for this purpose the FSIS Mercury information system has been created to ensure the traceability of goods and raw materials, from which they are made. And canned food, and frozen, and fresh, and steam. However, in the absence of veterinary accompanying documents, the circulation of goods of animal origin is illegal. It is not possible to trace its origin."