The interest for healthy food is increasing continually and this primarily because people are becoming aware of health benefits.
“If I compare people and their food needs 4 years ago, there are drastic changes. Starting from the requests I continually receive on my webpage on the things people want to know about bio products”, nutritionist Diola Dosti Baftiu says.
For three years now there is a rare department in Kosovo, for food safety and diets in a high school in Ferizaj. The pupils of this department, along with their head-teacher, are planning to open a store with healthy foods within the school premises. Apart from the fact that the store would be welcomed by many citizens, the money collected by selling these products would be used by the pupils.
The plan for the store carrying bio foods cannot be realized yet since the school is still waiting for the permission from the municipality. Until now, the only way pupils can impact the society is through advising them on the benefits of healthy food.
“The curriculum is drafted in the way that each classroom makes an impact in the locations where they intern. The internship is held in hospitals` cafeteria, in kindergarten, private restaurants, where pupils give advise on the appropriate food for each age-group”, Brilantina Berisha says.
Alongside the interest, consumers also voice their concerns: the double price of these foods, low quality are some of those. Due to the lack of awareness campaigns, neither consumers nor the producers have sufficient information of the meaning of “bio” product.
“The production and the offer of bio food still has inadequate social attention. Those minimal products have a small number of consumers, analogically proportional”, Selatin Kaçaniku from Consumers` Association confirms.
Kaçaniku says that even though there`s dissatisfaction, local institutions are unresponsive to the concerns and complaints of the citizens.
“This is proven by the small number of inspectors as well. For this reason it`s impossible to achieve the expected results to the satisfaction of the consumers”.
Lamir Thaçi, spokesman of Food and Veterinary Agency of Kosovo (FVAK), says that our country complies with CEFTA-s rules.
Besides food quality regulations, there is also a law that sanctions FVAK for not fulfilling its responsibilities.
“Regardless, whoever doubts or shows dissatisfaction regarding the fact that these laws are not being implemented, there are other institutions that can take measures against each and everyone. Administrative Instruction nr. 17/2008, is implemented since 2008”, Thaçi said.
Regardless of all the existing problems, Diola Dosti Baftiu, a successful woman from Albania, who now lives and works in Kosovo, is trying to raise awareness of healthy food among citizens. Through her webpage she managed to convince many people with her advice. She is very optimistic, adding that we have so many possibilities of having a bio market that we could supply other countries such as Switzerland and Germany.
Even though there are many possibilities for this market, the number of stores with bio food is insufficient.
According to her, the main reason why we should pay attention to our food is the to increase our immune system.
Xhenete Hasani
