At the Lidl shop in Teika, of the nearly 30 packs of different drinks, more than 20 are marked with a deposit label, Latvian Radio observed. Regardless, the VVD published an article last week claiming the opposite. The company is outraged as the agreement with the deposit packaging operator has already been concluded last year, and nearly all drinks are currently registered in the system.
Lidl Latvija spokesman Ingars Rudzītis said: “The registration is very active. It is in the final phase, given that there are two more weeks of verification time. As for products in stores, there may still be goods without these labels. Just because there is still a test time in which we can legally do it. We have products that have been purchased in previous months and they did not have this label, so they are currently sold so that as of 1 August 100% of all products are labelled appropriately."
Although on Monday the National Environmental Service indicated they had to verify the information published, the authority said Tuesday that there was no error in the article. Atis Treijs, representative of the VVD, said that there is a lot of production on the shelves outside Riga Lidl which has no deposit mark, so it is worrying whether the shop will be able to sell them in the next two weeks. Rudzītis, on the other hand, is convinced.
The State Environmental Service reported that 12 other traders who have not yet entered into a contract for participating in the deposit system have had more problems. This applies to around 40 retail venues. Treijs said that most of these were Beta stores.
The situation is with drink package producers is better. Of the more than 230 companies, contracts have not yet been concluded with five. Those are small companies or ones that have recently started their own operations.
Of all drinks, around 5% do not yet have the deposit label, said the VVD.
