Croatian consumers can consume domestically produced vegetables without fear of any harmful consequences for their health, Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic said at a press conference on Thursday after meeting vegetable producers and dealers.
The meeting was held to consider the latest developments surrounding vegetable contamination by E.coli bacteria in European Union countries, which led to a decline in vegetable consumption.
The head of the union of vegetable growers' associations, Zlatko Zagorec, said that cucumber sales had dropped by 100 per cent and that tomato and lettuce sales had also declined, but not so much.
Cobankovic said that Croatian vegetable producers were observing all the necessary food safety standards. He said that his ministry and the Ministry of Health were closely following developments in Germany and other countries and had stepped up import controls.
Responding to questions from the press, Cobankovic said that 500 tonnes of cucumbers had been imported into Croatia in the first five months of the year and that they had all passed quality control. He said that Croatia had considerably increased vegetable production in the last few years and was able to a large extent to meet domestic demand.
Zagorec called on consumers to buy domestic vegetables, stressing that there was no reason to fear that they were infected or of poor quality.
