Food safety standards are prominently on display on a one kilometer stretch of the Yerevan-Etchmiadzin highway where villagers are selling meat destined for the New Year’s holiday table.

The open-air butcher shop along the roadway has been doing business for the past five days in the village of Ptghounk.

There’s a similar market in the Armavir village of Tziatzan.

While Hetq has covered the issue for years, pointing out the obvious health violations, the police and local authorities seem to turn a blind eye.

Today we witnessed a policeman buying meat from one of the roadway vendors.

Driving along the Yerevan-Etchmiadzin roadway has become a chore given the numbers of cars stopping to make meat purchases.

Anoush Harutyunyan, Head of Information and Public Relations at the Food Safety Inspectorate, told Hetq that they are aware of the open-air meat markets and have advised local authorities to take “appropriate steps.”Harutyunyan, surprisingly, states that the inspectorate only has the power to move against companies and cannot ban individuals from selling meat in such poor sanitary conditions. That’s a matter for the police, she says.

“Of course, our inspectors go and record the problem, telling the vendors they cannot sell meat in such a fashion. Confronted by government inspectors, the vendors remove their wares, only to set up shop when the inspectors leave,” says Harutyunyan. 

She told Hetq that the meat vendors in Sisian got into a scuffle with visiting inspectors. 

Staffers at the Ptghounk Municipality told Hetq that no one had been issued a permit to sell meat along the side of the road.