More than a quarter of products showed significant differences between those available in Austria, Germany, and Hungary.Continue reading
International companies, which sell their products in Hungary with lower quality, can expect a fine in the amount of even 1.3 million euros from May 2022 – announced Tamás Schanda, Deputy Minister of Innovation and Technology.
This article was originally published on our sister-site, Ungarn Heute.
Dual quality will be sanctioned as an unfair trade practice from May 28, 2022. The term defines the act of a company selling a product in an EU member state under the same brand and with the same packaging, but with different ingredients and quality.
In 2017, Hungary was the first country to join the Visegrad Group countries in calling for action against these abhorrent practices, after which an EU directive emerged, which was implemented by the end of November 2021.
The amount of the fine can reach 5 percent of the manufacturer’s turnover, and in the case of international companies, it can be a maximum of 500 million forints (1.3 million euros). In the case of explainable differences in food products, consumers must be informed about these. The accredited laboratory of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) tested 420 different samples from 120 products in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Italy in 2021, of which about one-third were found to be of two different qualities.
Source: Világgazdaság
Featured image via Attila Balázs/MTI