Agency’s lower salami standards pose health threat, pig farmers say

SANTO DOMINGO. – Standards and Quality Agency (Digenor) director Manuel Guerrero Wednesday said his entity is interested in "adjusting" the rules of salami meat because in his view the current norm is “unenforceable."

He said his agency is interested in adapting the percentage of sodium nitrate in products, because the health requirements were lowered from 200 to 125 milligrams. "Lowering the percentage of moisture in salami is very difficult so standards should be adjusted for the product to be competitive.”

Guerrero’s statement responded to the journalist Huchi Lora, who asked him about the allegation by the pig farmers grouped in ADOGRANJA, that DIGENOR aims to lower the manufacturing standard because salamis don’t meet the minimum protein levels.

ADOGRANJA affirms that the agency will allow sausage makers to lower standards instead of forcing them to raise them so their products meet established requirements, warning that pricier salamis would lower the standard from 22 percent protein to 10, and the cheaper sausage from 16 to 7 percent.