© NPRThe outside of a grocery store in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. For years, governments and consumer advocates have been decrying what they call lower quality standards for packaged food available in Central and Eastern Europe, as compared with identically branded items sold in Western European countries.
And that's not because the Czech Republic is landlocked.
For years, governments and consumer advocates have been decrying what they call lower quality standards for packaged food available in Central and Eastern Europe, as compared with identically branded items sold in Western European countries. Hop the train east from Berlin to Warsaw, and you may find that the same popular soft drink brand is made with artificial sweeteners, rather than real sugar; a carton of juice comes with an extra serving of stabilizers; and lunchmeat is produced with smaller quantities of actual meat.
Yet despite the differences in ingredients, these products look the same on supermarket shelves from Brussels to Bratislava, leading some to ask — as did Polish daily Gazeta Prawna — "Is it food racism?"
But recent activity in the upper echelons of EU politics suggests that awareness of the so-called dual-quality foods finally may have reached a critical mass.
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