Moscow, December 19. The Aluminium Association, an organisation that unites key producers of cast tableware, intends to lobby for mandatory certification of tableware. This intention was announced during the final meeting of the Consumer Goods sector this year.
In 2018, the aluminium tableware market demonstrated a rather moderate growth of 29 thousand tonnes (in 2017, the market volume was 27.6 thousand tonnes). Despite the growth of the market, there are still issues with import substitution (imports make up as much as 43% of total sales), outdated legislation, the introduction of mandatory certification and the development of tableware testing methodology, the falling number of laboratories that can issue certificates. These measures are aimed at promoting the use of aluminium tableware which has all the necessary safety and operating properties, as well as at forcing producers of counterfeit tableware out of the Russian market. Domestic producers have sufficient capacity and are capable of delivering the required quality to completely replace imports. A similar situation has already been achieved in the market for extruded packaging solutions, where the share of imported aluminium roundels accounts only for the production of non-standard sizes.
"The domestic market needs healthy competition based on high quality standards. Today, we are seeing some rather disturbing developments: lots of poor quality products are being imported into the country, some of which are actually harmful to health. Producers and importers of tableware and packaging materials used in food processing, catering, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and other industries must meet stricter producing requirements and must be audited more closely to ensure there are no violations," noted Association Chairman, Valentin Trischenko.