With the strengthening of the ruble, foreign brands began to return to the market en masse. The total import of beer and low-alcohol drinks, according to Chestny Znak, in January-April amounted to 141.5 million liters, an increase of 52.1% year-on-year. Italy and France increased their wine supplies manifold in January-March. The head of Roskachestvo spoke about the confrontation between Russian and imported alcohol, as well as the fight against counterfeit products in various fields in an interview with Kommersant. Maxim Protasov.
— Roskachestvo has been supporting winemaking since 2018. What measures have been effective?
— Eight years ago, when we first held a meeting of retail chains and restaurant operators, we were told that there was no good Russian wine. They were very surprised that the state turned in this direction. It is no longer fashionable for a restaurant to not have a wide display of Russian wine on its shelves or menus. The effect was given by subsidies from the Ministry of Agriculture for the expansion of vineyard areas. Autochthonous, our own grape varieties are being revived. We created the “Russian Wine Guide” and launched “Russian Wine Fairs” to promote Russian products. We conduct farm audits, implement quality management systems and recommendations for technological processes.
— What other measures are needed?
— We constantly talk about the need to improve product quality. We are now working in this direction, continuing to implement the principles of ISO 9000 (a series of international standards.— “Kommersant”), wine quality standards. It is important to continue to introduce consumers to Russian wine. For this purpose, we have approved the national GOST for the wine list in restaurants.
— The Russian wine market depends on state support, and competition on it is decreasing?
“We can only talk about this when the share of domestic wine in retail exceeds 80%. To do this, we still need to provide the market with a sufficient amount of grapes. But even if 80% is reached, competition will remain, including between Russian manufacturers.
— What are the main complaints about Russian wine?
— We are now recording complaints more likely to pseudo-wine. Manufacturers package it in a bottle similar to a sparkling wine container. There are now about 100 million liters of such pseudo-wine on the market. That’s quite a lot. Formally, there are no violations of the requirements of Russian legislation, but in essence this discredits the Russian wine market. Another challenge is maintaining consistency in wine quality.
— What is the share of counterfeit goods on the wine market?
— Direct falsification is less than 5%. This is when fruit must, sugar, flavorings, and unauthorized preservatives, such as benzoic acid, are added to the drink. We recently took a deep dive into soft-pack wine. Now consumer demand for it is growing. 9 out of 16 samples did not meet GOST requirements. Producers have not yet learned how to make such wine.
— They are discussing the creation of a separate shelf in retail for Russian beer, but here imports do not exceed 4–5%, why have a shelf?
— We need an information campaign and work with sales channels. Buyers do not understand that high-quality beer is made in Russia. Until now, more than 30% of Russian consumers believe that imported beer is a priori tastier and of higher quality. It is necessary to restore popularity to the Russian product in order to completely replace foreign brands. Russia provides itself 100% with malt, but less than 7% with hops. We need to increase the hop harvest sevenfold, to 2 thousand tons by 2030.
— Is there a lot of adulteration in beer?
— From July 31, 2025, a mandatory register of producers of beer and similar products appeared. He brought order to the industry. Before this, there were many beer drinks that were called beer, and many positions where alcohol was simply added. Now, due to traceability, the production of such low-alcohol products has decreased by 89%. There is no longer any point in adulterating beer at her expense.
— You regularly find irregularities in the composition of fabrics and labeling of clothing. Is the situation getting worse?
— The situation is improving, but not as quickly as we would like. We are working together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other structures. But the production of counterfeit products that do not comply with the declared composition or technical regulations is still high. We estimate its share at more than 20%. For school uniforms, there are more than 50% discrepancies, because most of the products here are imported.
— Where does the main flow of low-quality textiles and counterfeits come from?
— This is mainly produced from China. From there you can supply both very high-quality products and those that do not meet our standards and technical regulations. A number of importers do not properly undergo the certification procedure. Rosakkreditatsiya is working to deprive such structures of accreditation. We also stopped recognizing the certificates of a number of bodies from the EAEU countries that violated our legislation.
— Are there many violations in household chemicals and cosmetics?
— In household chemicals and cosmetics, advertising messages often do not correspond to reality. For example, about 25% of antibacterial soaps have not proven their protective properties. This soap is powerless against E. coli, staphylococcus, etc. Another issue that we are now solving with the help of standardization and certification is “green camouflage.” There is often nothing behind the names “organic”, “green”, “eco-cosmetics”.
