Following the tomatoes and peaches blocked in Croatia, a quantity of red peppers exported from Albania to Slovenia have been urgently withdrawn from the market there, due to high levels of pesticides discovered in the Albanian product. The Geaprodukt company in Slovenia has ordered the withdrawal of peppers from Albania, after excessive pesticides such as acetamiprid, formetanate and flonicamid were found in them. The product exported from Albania to Slovenia, from August 24 to September 4, was packaged in cardboard boxes and then in plastic bags.
The Slovenian company has urged all citizens not to consume the product, due to excessive pesticides, but to return it to the place of purchase or throw it away. Also, people who have been in contact with the contaminated food should disinfect their hands, authorities in Slovenia announced. Meanwhile, a few days ago, Croatia destroyed 4 tons of Albanian tomatoes, after they turned out to have been sprayed with 5 times the permitted amount of the insect-killing poison chlorfenapyr.
Peppers produced by Albanian farmers must first be checked by agronomists from the National Veterinary and Plant Protection Authority (AKVMB) for the pesticides they use while growing the product. This same institution, together with the National Food Authority (AKU), should also check agricultural pharmacies to see if the pesticides they sell are approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, or if they may have been smuggled in, as experts have often raised concerns about and as resulted in the case of pesticides in 20 tons of mandarins seized at the end of December 2024 in Croatia.
Read more at Alfapress and at Gazeta Express
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Publication date:
Fri 12 Sep 2025