Armenia fines meat companies for insufficient labeling

Armenia's market watchdog said Monday it had imposed penalties on 21 meat companies for "misleading the public" with insufficient labeling. The violations included failure to put all ingredients -- and in some case no ingredients -- on product labels, as well as the lack of meat in sausages, the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition (SCPEC) said when releasing the results of a months-long investigation into the country's meat market. Such practices were against Armenia's law protecting fair competition, the SCPEC said. The penalties were 1 percent of the companies' profits from last year, commission chairman Artak Shaboyan said.