Russia | The fish stick scam spread to Sweden – Findus, who had been hiding in Finland, finally admitted the origin of the fish

Swedish people the food giants broke their boycott promise, writes the newspaper Dagens Nyheter in its extensive article published on Saturday.

DN began to investigate the origin of Swedish fish sticks After the news of HS two weeks ago, that a large part of the fish sticks sold in Finnish shops are made from Russian fish.

The situation in Sweden is similar to Finland. DN’s in the report five of Sweden’s largest retail chains admitted that the raw material for fish sticks comes at least partly from Russian waters, despite the fact that the companies had said they would boycott Russian products.

Only Sweden’s Lidl initially told DN that there is no Russian fish in their selection. The company changed its statement after hearing that Finland’s Lidl had already admitted to HS that more than half of the raw material comes from Russian waters.

The corrected statement adapted the statement received from Finland: most of the fish comes from Russia, after which it is processed in China or South Korea and sent to other countries.

Russian according to the state fisheries authority, Russian boats caught almost five million tons of fish and shellfish last year. Almost half of the catch was exported and some of the most important buyer countries are within the EU, according to the authority.

However, none of the fish stick packages contain the name of Russia, as the country of origin is marked as the country where the fish is made from the stick. The origin of the fish is only indicated by the number of the fishing area, which may be stated on the package.

A large part of the fish sticks eaten by Nordic people come from Findus packages. Findus is originally a Swedish company, which in 2015 was transferred to Europe’s largest frozen food manufacturer Nomad Foods.

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“Our contracts and volumes are commercially sensitive, so we cannot go into details.”

of Findus The Finnish country manager did not respond to HS’s interview requests, even though eight of them were sent over the course of two weeks, some of them through other employees of the company. He could not be reached from the office either.

DN received a written statement from Findus’ Nordic director of marketing and responsibility From Henrik von Lowzow. He refused to say exactly how much of the fish the company uses is of Russian origin, but admitted that the company is dependent on Russian fish.

“Our contracts and volumes are commercially sensitive, so we cannot go into details, but up to 75 percent of the most popular fish varieties used by many brands and retailers, including seine, cod, haddock and wild-caught salmon, are caught in Russian waters. Therefore, this is a huge challenge for the entire industry, not just for us,” the email stated.

Von Lowzow emphasized that the company is shocked by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and is trying to find alternatives to Russian fish.

in Finland both S-group and Kesko announced shortly after the outbreak of the Russian invasion that they would remove Russian products from store shelves.

HS made a new round of inquiries to domestic retail chains two weeks after the Russian origin of Findus’ fish was highlighted in HS’s article.

Ketju was asked if there had been discussions with Findus and if there were any changes to the menus.

Both the S group and Kesko said that Findus has been contacted, but they do not open up the discussions in more detail. The chains also do not say whether they intend to continue selling the products.

Lidl Finland’s communication says that there are no immediate measures to be taken regarding the selection, but the company is currently mapping out alternatives.