The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing a new electronic traceability system that will track food products from production or import all the way to the retail counter, Agriculture and Food Minister Plamen Abrovski said on Nova TV. The system will register every product entering Bulgaria for the first time, allowing inspectors to scan items in stores and instantly access full information about their origin and movement through the supply chain.
Abrovski said the platform is designed to improve control and prevent cases involving fraudulent or mislabeled food products, such as the so-called “fake butter” incident, where non-dairy fats were found instead of milk fat. He noted that the product was identified in early 2025, removed from the market, and involved operators were taken out of the food chain following inspections by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) and a referral to prosecutors.
Further reading: Bulgarian Competition Commission Fines Firms Over Misleading “Butter” Labeling
He also pointed to gaps in existing control mechanisms, saying that some monitoring functions of the BFSA have been weakened over time and that authorities previously lacked systematic data on daily raw milk imports. “When I asked what enters Bulgarian dairies daily, it turned out no one had such data,” he said, adding that recent inspections indicated significantly lower milk imports than previously assumed.
