After visiting German farm owned by brothers of Torsten Hemme, well known analyst and IFCN Managing Director, Mikhail Mishchenko shared his impressions on dairynews.ru:

First of all, there is no anything like Russian “Mercury” traceability system there.  In Germany, they have not heard about introducing traceability by the state. There is no such thing and the state is not engaged in this.

On the farm I visited, they process 30 tons of milk daily and half of the products that they produce are supplied to kindergartens and schools.  They supply 15 tons of drinking milk per day.

What is most interesting, these supplies take place in reusable packaging.  These are three-liter plastic bottles which they use to deliver milk to school, and then they receive the plastic bottles back from the school. These empty bottles are washed directly at the enterprise and then delivered separately to the same kindergarten or school.

The owner of the dairy showed me a bottle that was produced in 2008, that is, this bottle is have already been in use for 11 years by now.

Is it possible today in Russia?  Unfortunately not, although it is very cost effective, environmentally friendly, it protects the environment and makes this business more efficient.  But, unfortunately, now the plant can not even separately deliver a product to a kindergarten or school without having a specific certification.  This is not the case in Gerapproach is much simpler.  On the other hand, everything seems to be regulated, everything is very strictly regulated by the state in Germany, but there is no excessive government intervention in this business.  Wish we had the same approach.

Video dairynews.ru