The NKFH imposed a fine of almost 3 million forints during the national strawberry inspection

They added that the staff of the NKFH and the government offices under its professional supervision inspected 512 batches of strawberries at 479 locations across the country.

According to the statement,

one of the best-known domestic strawberry growing areas is Lajosmizse and its surroundings, which is why many people specifically look for Lajosmizse strawberries. For this reason, it happens every year that strawberries of other – mainly Romanian – origin are tried to be sold as Hungarian, or even as “Lajosmizse”. Inspectors have found several such cases this season, although “those who cheat like this can expect a heavy fine.”

It is important to know that Romanian strawberries are often much cheaper than domestic ones, so they are often popular for this reason alone. At the same time, they indicated that foreign fruits generally have different packaging: Hungarian producers typically use replaceable 5-kilogram wooden crates, while Romanian strawberries arrive in plastic crates, and Spanish, Greek or Polish strawberries are in smaller, single-use packaging.

They highlighted that the national campaign coordinated by the NKFH covered the entire commercial spectrum, from wholesale markets to hypermarkets and greengrocers to temporary street stalls. The inspectors examined not only the quality and origin of the fruit, but also the hygiene conditions.

About a fifth of the items examined were of foreign origin, which roughly corresponds to market proportions. However, the proportion of problematic lots was 10 percent, meaning that one in ten samples did not comply with traceability or labeling rules. This is a higher proportion than what experts usually measure for fruit and vegetables.

They pointed out that there were no quality problems with either domestic or foreign shipments, but with the latter, the origin was often not indicated or was misleading.