“Encourage local products!”, Life in Armenia is urging, “Our food products – namely – are tastier, well made, AND cheaper. …I would choose Artfood (or any other local brand) over Bonduelle anytime!” Lara get’s a kick out of watching how the “city is transforming itself so quickly and how modern the stores are becoming”, but many goods sold in Armenia are imported and “relatively expensive” the blogger says, arriving at the conclusion, that the way out is to encourage the local producers.
However, the local producers, more specifically jermuk mineral producers are still struggling to prove that their mineral water is not dangerous, following the warning by US FDA, that the level of arsenic contained in Jermuk imported to US could cause cancer. “Armenians Paranoid About Jermuk”, according to the Armenia Blog, which has reposted an article from A1plus, dealing with attempts of Armenian Jermuk producers to fight back, and here are some of the thing’s they’re saying (Via Armenia blog, check out A1plus for the full article):
[…]The companies are surprised to hear no specific company. “First of all the agency should have discussed it with the corresponding producer, to see whether it belonged to it or not. None of our company got any notification.”
“This is a deliberate action towards Armenian mineral water.”[…]
Meanwhile, some people are looking for alternatives to Jermuk, like the Notes From Hairenik is doing:
[…]Now the hope is that other competitive carbonated mineral waters bottled in Armenia, such as Arzni and Bjni, will be found to have little to no arsenic in them.[…]
When in Armenia, I always try to buy local products. These products are mostly good. The only thing I don’t buy are the soft drinks.
actually – armenian food is really good, in many cases because the farmer can’t afford to use chemicals… especially things like vegetables, fruit, etc.