Allseeds Group: we have nothing to do with the ‘chicken fat’! In the interest of the State and the industry, Security Service of Ukraine must conduct inspections of all sunflower oil market operators, our plant being first!

A dirty smear campaign has been launched lately against Allseeds Group, aiming to de-organize its operations and cause material losses for the company – the Allseeds Group that, despite the turbulent 2013-15 has built an oil-extracting complex in Yuzhny port valued at 200 million US dollars.

This is happening at the time when, since the start of the 2016/17 season, the company’s plant has begun its successful operation, ranked 5^th among sunflower oil producers in Ukraine. Behind such production there are corresponding financial indicators that allow the company to deliver on its liabilities to the creditors, as well as to plan and implement effective logistics solutions.

Allseeds Group’s success in Ukraine has created envy and jealousy, that is why the latter resort to dirty insinuations and waste crazy amounts of money on endless scurrilous publications.

As long as the lies were directed concerned to us only, we kept silent and refrained from engaging in trivial quarrels. However, recently, the brazen insinuators have crossed the red line. Citing one of those ‘experts’ seeking easy gain, they circulated in the media a fake report on adulteration of sunflower oil in the Ukrainian market, with the use of the so-called ‘chicken fat’.

Conscious of what such fake information might lead to - with regard to Ukraine’s economy, national currency, sunflower oil production industry and companies (with the revenues from sunflower oil exports amounting to nearly $4 billion) - we declare the following.

The management and the shareholders of Allseeds Group who have invested nearly 20 years into the development of the Ukrainian oil extraction industry, as well as other market players, remember well how difficult it was for Ukraine back in 2008 to recover from the contaminated by technical oil, Ukrainian sunflower oil scandal in the world market. 

Therefore, having invested dozens of millions dollars in their new project, the company’s investors took care, first of all, of introducing the strictest possible, independent from own employees, a reputable quality control system in the plant – to ensure full adherence to the modern production standards.

In the Group’s production facilities in Yuzhny port, as part of the Food Safety Management System (HACCP), throughout the years 2013-15, ISO 22000 and GMP+B2 for animal nutrition were introduced and certified. The risks of supply to the company’s Oil Terminal of sunflower oil adulterated with mineral oils or animal (‘chicken’) fats are controlled efficiently by the chemists of NofaLab laboratory, using two modern Agilent chromatographs. NofaLab Ukraine employees were trained by the Dutch experts of the central Nofa Lab B.V. laboratory in Schiedam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.  One of the chromatographs, Agilent 7890А, is designed for sterol content testing according to ISO 12228 methodologies that is currently regarded as the most precise one for identifying animal fats in plant oils, is used for testing sunflower oil for cholesterol.

And, most importantly, it is unprecedented not only in Ukraine but in the world practice that from the very beginning of the plant operation, all administrative issues and ensuring adherence to the production technology and quality have been the responsibility of external independent certified Dutch surveyors -  Dr. Buschmeyer and Nofalab who maintain comprehensive, 24/7  quality and quantity control in the Group’s plant and oil terminal.

For reference: Dr. Buschmeyer is an independent surveyor that, for over 30 years now, has operated in the sphere of quantitative control of edible oils, grains, fats and other products.

Thanks to the diversified network of branch offices in the key ports around the world, Dr. Buschmeyer’s provides its services 24/7, 365 days per year. The company is accredited at ISO 9001, as well as FOSFA, GAFTA (Grain and Feed Trade Association); NOFOTA (Netherlands Oils, Fats and Oilseeds Trade Association).

NofaLab is an independent laboratory that has got many years of experience of working throughout Europe, with its headquarters located in Schiedam, Rotterdam, Netherlands. It has worked in Ukraine for 8 years now in the inspection of plant oils, oil crops and grains. It conducts tests for various indicators, including the food safety indicators – checking raw materials for adulteration by mineral oils, sterols, benzopyrene, fatty acids, GMO, mycotoxins etc.

The laboratory is accredited at ISO-17025, FOSFA, GAFTA, QS (Germany), ILAC, NOFOTA, FAVV (Belgium), FOSFA (The Federation of Oils, Seeds and Fats Associations Ltd).

Technological facilities of the plant and the rules for cargo handling in the terminal prevent contamination of edible sunflower oil by any pollutants from the environment and exclude the possibility of adulteration by the mixing of various oils.

We argue that everything mentioned above excludes even a hypothetical possibility of the information circulated in the media regarding the adulteration of sunflower oil in our enterprise being true. And the car with the oil adulterated by animal fat that has been mentioned was in fact identified and detained by the incoming inspection at our Terminal. This once again testifies to our absolute intolerance to such market behavior.

As for the consequences of the information war, those who are behind it should know that it is a war not so much against the Allseeds Group, as against the State of Ukraine, its economy’s most successful industry that is a significant contributor to improving the economic conditions and welfare of the people of Ukraine.

Taking into consideration the threats in place and the danger for the interests of the state and the people of Ukraine, we demand that the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service of Ukraine together with Ukroliyaprom, the business association of the industry, conduct preventive inspections of the oil market operators – first of all, of the exporters in ports, to identify any potential adulteration by animal (‘chicken’) fats or mineral oils of the sunflower oil they accept, transport and supply.

Allseeds Group is ready to be first in undergoing such inspection.

We also demand that the Security Service of Ukraine identify those who have ordered this, undoubtedly, anti-Ukrainian campaign.

 Press center