Officials of the National Authority for the Protection of Consumer Rights (ANPC) have started inspections of fruit and vegetable suppliers, so far fines amounting to 140,000 lei have been issued. The sale of two tons of fruit has also been temporarily suspended until deficiencies in information regarding their origin or name are corrected, news.ro reports.

ANPC announced on Friday that representatives of the Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Consumer Protection Commission (CRPCR) Bucharest-Ilfov have started a series of checks on the correctness of the information on the origin/name of the fruits and vegetables sold.

Thus, on November 28 and 29, as a result of control measures, 11 suppliers of vegetables, fruits and natural juices of the “Mega Image” retail chain were found in a store in the 3rd sector of “Stolytsia” and in two warehouses of the chain located in the city of Ilfov. county.

As a result of the inspections, fines of 140,000 lei were imposed and the sale of two tons of fruit was temporarily suspended until deficiencies in the information regarding their origin or name were corrected.

“Our vegetables and fruits do not ripen in winter! With very few exceptions, we can’t talk about Romanian products, so we wanted to find out if it’s a spell or a scam!” said ANPC President Horia Constantinescu.

Sanctions were applied to three business entities, respectively, for misleading commercial practices: mention on the product label of the variety of imported fruit, from the documents provided to the control group, failure to establish the fact of trade that the products originate from the specified variety.

There are also ongoing checks on their origin, name and authenticity in the case of products sold that come from Romania.

The National Administration for the Protection of Consumer Rights has announced that it will extend these checks to the entire country in the next period.