The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment has initiated ten sanctioning files and has detected a total of 53 infractions in the controls carried out during 2026 on food from third countries and marketed in the Balearic Islands.
According to the regional department in a statement, this year 22 references from different families of products have been reviewed: seven horticultural products, five vegetable preserves, four dehydrated fruits, two wines, two spirits, one non-alcoholic beverage, and one appetizer.
In these inspections, products originating from 15 non-EU states have been analyzed, including South Africa, Brazil, Peru, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Argentina, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and Russia.
As a result of these verifications, ten files have been opened and 49 non-compliances related to labeling have been recorded, two related to the composition of the foods, and another two linked to traceability.
By type of product, dehydrated fruits concentrate the highest number of labeling failures, with 22 cases, followed by horticultural items, with 17 infractions.
At the same time, no presence of prohibited pesticides has been found in the analyzed samples. In total, 4,004 determinations have been carried out: 1,566 in horticultural products, 1,233 in vegetable preserves, 972 in dehydrated fruits, and 233 in appetizers.
These interventions are part of the control program that the Ministry applies to food from outside the European Union and which has been notably reinforced in the last three years.
The central purpose of these actions, in addition to verifying compliance with current regulations, is to safeguard the rights of consumers and protect the agri-food fabric of the Balearic Islands against possible unfair competition practices.
"We are very clear that we must stand by our farmers and agri-food producers," highlighted the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment, Joan Simonet.
In the same vein, he emphasized that it is unacceptable to demand high standards from the Balearic production sector while ignoring the requirements that imported items must meet.
"We want to ensure that the products marketed here comply with the regulations and that our producers compete on equal terms," he stressed.
Simonet has emphasized that this control strategy responds to the claims of the producer sector of the Islands and aims, as an essential purpose, to curb any situation of unfair competition regarding local producers.
The general director of Agro-food Quality and Local Product, Joan Llabrés, has pointed out that these controls "allow us to effectively verify that the food coming from third countries that is marketed in the Islands meets the established requirements and to act when we detect any non-compliance."
"We will continue to intensify this work because the rules must be the same for all products that reach the consumer, regardless of their origin," he concluded.