Laboratory testing of chickens sold under the "Getamej" brand revealed higher than accepted levels of salmonella.

The tests were conducted at the RA Ministry of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspectorate's laboratory. The results were published on February 14.

Vahe Khalatyan, who heads the Kotayk Regional Center of the State Food Safety Inspectorate, has written that a spot inspection of 300 kilos of broilers produced by the "Grig el Met" company did not correspond to storage standards or labelling laws and thus the sale of the product was stopped until the end of lab testing.

Inspections are on-going at the Getamej poultry plant and are tasked with locating the source of the salmonella. Plant workers say that the operations of the "Grig el Met" company might be shut down as a result of the findings.

The Food Safety Inspectorate says that the entire operation id being monitored and that each batch of chickens is being tested.

The Investigative Journalists NGO hatched the idea of coverage the inside operations of various poultry plants in Armenia. We wanted to study the production facilities, especially from a food safety perspective, and to see whether genetically modified organisms were showing up in the lab tests.

On the orders of Food Safety State Services (FSSS) Chief Abram Bakhchakoulyan, the monitoring team included Sergey Stepanyan (President of Armenia's Union of Poultry Producers), FSSS regional inspectors and Armen Poghosyan, President of the Consumers' Union of Armenia, NGO.

We weren't able to visit all the poultry plants in Armenia, just the four largest ones – Black Star (Lousakert brand), Grig el Met (Getamej), the Baghramyan poultry plant owned by Gzhouk Ltd. and the Araks Poultry Plant CJSC.

Grig el Met was the second site that we visited. The staff wasn't all that welcoming and didn't give much importance to our visit.

Grig el Met was the only plant that we visited where the production workers weren't wearing the required work clothes and where unauthorized people were seen entering and exiting the plant, thus violating hygiene laws.

The factory actually reminded me more of a family-run operation that the second largest poultry plant in Armenia. Most of the operation, from start to finish, was conducted in a very unhygienic environment.

The experts in our group said it was no wonder that unacceptable traces of salmonella were to be found in the chickens coming off the assembly line. There was inadequate ventilation in the plant and the exhaust system was ineffective as well.

Right now, Getamej is in the process of going out of business due to financial problems.

Photos and video by Saro Baghdasaryan and Ararat Davtyan