Recently, the multibillion market of army food supplies has been shaken by several scandals, related to their quality. Formally, the food product supply system for the AFU envisages control at every stage; however, it seems like the army, especially its combat divisions, still receives dozens and hundreds of tons of low-quality food. How is it possible?
NGL.media found that the cases of low-quality food supplies for the AFU are far from rare, and the current control system seems to benefit unfair suppliers.
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In early October, NGL.media published the investigation about the delivery of almost 11 thousand cans of low-quality canned pork meat from “Menterika” LLC to the combat divisions, after which the enterprise of the Ministry of Defence, “The State Logistics Operator” (SLO) abrogated the contract with the supplying company, “Trade Granite Invest”, for over UAH 2 billion.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence held off on commenting on the revealed facts, so we decided to analyse four more food deliveries to the same battalion, the officer of which had previously claimed the canned meat as inedible. And the result was astonishing! For an entire month, the battalion didn’t receive normal canned food with quality confirmation and the relevant documents even once, although the supplier and the producer were already different.
NGL.media found that this is not a chance event but an enormous hole in the system of food supply to the army, thanks to which contractors acting in collusion with producers can feed the army vast volumes of low-quality food and receive excessive profits.
Counterfeiting the documents
After the publication of the NGL.media’s investigation, a special commission of the Ministry of Defence took the remains of “Menterika” canned food from the units, whereto it had been supplied, and sent it for their own examination. The experts of the laboratory of the Ministry of Defence confirmed the conclusion of the independent laboratory, which stated that this canned food had been of poor quality, and the internal audit revealed that the supplier, “Trade Granite Invest” LLC, used invalid documents to confirm the quality.
These documents claimed that the quality of canned food had been confirmed by one of the laboratories the military unit А3466 of the Department of Food Safety and Veterinary Medicine (DFSVM), subordinate to the Central Department of Quality Control of the Ministry of Defence. Indeed, this laboratory issued a positive conclusion for 19 thousand cans of food but later cancelled it. Yet the supplying company used the already cancelled document to supply at least 38.1 thousand cans of food.
It is impossible to accurately determine the volume of the delivery of low-quality canned meat, since, according to the data obtained by NGL.media, the Ministry of Defence had an internal audit only in one military regiment, whereto the food had been supplied by “Trade Granite Invest”. However, even this audit revealed that 38.1 thousand cans of pork meat from “Menterika” had been supplied using the cancelled protocols, for which the SLO [вставка: the state enterprise of the Ministry of Defence, “The State Logistics Operator”, responsible for non-lethal procurements for the AFU] paid over UAH 4.8 million. This is confirmed by three quality declarations from the producer for the batches of different volumes which have the same number one, two, three , which were provided by “Trade Granite Invest” representatives for the consignment of food to a specific military regiment.
Examination of canned products in one of the laboratories of the DFSVM (photo by ArmyInform)
Therefore, in addition to the use of cancelled protocols of the DFSVM, detected by the Ministry of Defence, it concerns probable counterfeiting of quality declarations as well, which actually is a collusion between a producer and a supplier.
Let’s follow hands closely
The assumption about the collusion between “Trade Granite Invest” and “Menterika” aimed at supplying food products, bypassing the current quality control system, is confirmed by one more vivid fact. In January, “Trade Granite Invest” asked the DFSVM to inspect 80 thousand cans of pork meat, produced by “Menterika” last August. The specialists of the DFSVM found no marking on all the cans and rejected the entire batch, which cost over UAH 10 million.
However, as already mentioned above, a few days later, “Trade Granite Invest” made a request about the inspection of a considerably smaller batch of the same canned meat 19,050 cans of “Menterika” pork meat , the quality of which was confirmed by the military laboratory that issued 71 original testing protocols to supply this food to 71 units of the AFU. Then, the supplier asked the DFSVM to re-issue this smaller batch for eight military units, copying the 71 permits that had already been cancelled. This may be how “Trade Granite Invest” managed to supply the army with the previously rejected 80 thousand cans of “Menterika” pork meat.
The military experts rejected 80 thousand cans of “Menterika” pork meat, yet these cans still found their way to the combat units of the AFU (photo by NGL.media)
It should be highlighted that the supplier buys the products from the producer only after receiving a positive review from the DFSVM. So, “Trade Granite Invest” could have gone to another producer. Yet it seems that the company was really interested in supplying only the products of “Menterika”.
The companies “Trade Granite Invest” and “Menterika” have not responded to NGL.media’s requests for comments on this article.
The supplier is different, yet the problem remains the same
The supply of low-quality food seems to be a common practice of the army contractors rather than sad single occasions. After the abrogation of the contract with “Trade Granite Invest”, “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” LLC has become a new supplier for the combat units of the AFU in the Donetsk region. This is the very company which had supplied food to them by the end of last July, and then was replaced by “Trade Granite Invest”. According to the data found by NGL.media, it seems that “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” also supplied canned food without any inspections and used invalid documents.
Using the battalion, mentioned in the previous investigation, as an example, we checked four weekly batches the battalion received food products each week of canned pork meat, which “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” supplied in the period from June 21 till July 19. This supplier delivered the canned meat of such trademarks as “Classo Miaso” [High Class Meat] and “Garne Carne” [Nice Carne], produced by “Business Meat Product”, but the servicemen complained about their quality each time.
One day, the food supply officer of the battalion just refused to accept low-quality canned food. “We rejected a batch of canned meat, which they tried to make us accept. We didn’t take it,” Dmytro Vlasenko, the commanding officer of the battalion, wrote to us at the time. “The notification of defect a claim, after which the supplier has to replace the low-quality goods in the course of 48 hours was not composed because it has to be signed by the supplier’s representative, not the driver-subcontractor usually, suppliers hire third-party logistic companies to deliver food directly to the units .”
The documents, accompanying those cans, did not correspond to the reality; they had not been inspected by the specialists of the DFSVM, which was confirmed by the Ministry of Defence in response to the inquiry of NGL.media. However, one week later, “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” LLC still brought the same canned meat to the servicemen using the same invalid documents. “We did accept it because we had nothing else to feed our people,” explained Dmytro Vlasenko.
According to the data of the Ministry of Defence, the specialists of DFSVM, at the request of “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” inspected four batches of canned pork meat “Garne Carne” in the total amount of 96,336 cans, 31,032 of which were found unsuitable for consumption. Judging by the persistence of “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5”, these cans may have been supplied to Vlasenko’s battalion.
The representatives of “Kontrakt Prodrezerv 5” LLC and “Business Meat Product” LLC have not responded to NGL.media’s requests for comments on this article.
A mistake and the ways to correct it
Formally, the system of food supply and control over its quality looks orderly and proper. Each link in this chain performs its duties. The DFSVM inspects the food batches, offered by suppliers, and prohibits them from supplying low-quality and dangerous food; the SLO takes the orders from the military units and divisions and pays suppliers only for actually delivered food products, and the local food supply officers inspect the products and receive the documents. How do enormous volumes of low-quality and dangerous food products slip through this controlled mechanism?
The only logical explanation, found by NGL.media, is the absence of coordination between the structures of the Ministry of Defence. The military laboratories of the DFSVM confirm the quality and safety of specific batches and specify the volumes of the permitted batch, the list of military units, and the numbers of the agreements on supplies in the testing protocol. Yet the SLO, which pays the suppliers, does not have the information about the volumes of the batches but pays the money according to the documents, received from the food supply officers. So there is no reconciliation check for the volume of the batch, permitted for the delivery, and the food products, actually supplied to the AFU, and thus paid for by the SLO. In other words, the supplying company can receive a permit from the DFSVM to supply 10 thousand cans but actually deliver 100 thousand cans to the servicemen and receive the payment for them.
The SLO pays the suppliers for the food based on the acts of accepting the goods and consignment bills. These acts specify the number of food packages one package is one meal for one serviceman , delivered by the contractor to the military unit. And it doesn’t matter whether those packages consist of just basil, potatoes, cans or all of it in one, the main thing is to remain within the amount of money, coordinated for one package. The addenda to the acts state the assortment of food without any details regarding the producer, trademark, production date, or number of testing protocol from the DFSVM.
Both structures of the Ministry of Defence confirmed the assumption of NGL.media about the absence of coordination.
“At present, SE “SLO” does not conduct the reconciliation of the volumes (batches) of the cans, actually delivered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the volumes, which were subject to the laboratory testing in the DFSVM, and makes payments only for the volumes of food products, actually delivered to the military units,” reads the response of the SLO to the inquiry of NGL.media.
In its turn, according to the reply of the Ministry of Defence the DFSVM informs the SLO only about the rejected batches of food products.
Therefore, it turns out that the function of controlling the quality of food products, actually delivered to the AFU, is currently vested in the lowest level in the system — the food supply officers of the combat units. It seems like they are the ones to control all the paper documents, provided by the suppliers, and reconcile a ton of information, including the terms of validity of the contracts, the validity of the testing protocols and quality declarations, the volumes of batches, etc. regarding dozens of different food items, brought at the same time. It is absolutely impossible to ensure such control in combat conditions.
The Ministry of Defence assures that it understands the problem and intends to make it impossible for suppliers to abuse the system via the implementation of the automated control system, which will receive all the necessary information from both DFSVM and the SLO. They plan on launching this system in 2025. “As a result, only the amount of the goods, which has been subjected to laboratory testing, will be paid for”, the Ministry of Defence declares.
The State Logistics Operator, directly responsible for the delivery of food products to the army, also assures that there will be enhanced quality control. In particular, they intend to check both suppliers and producers.
This journalistic investigation was conducted and published within the project of the RPDI “Support for Journalistic Investigations” with financial support from the International Media Support (IMS).