Bulgaria's canned food production has declined by 30% in 2009 compared to the 2008 level because of the economic crisis.

This was announced Thursday by representatives of the Canning Research Institute stationed in Bulgaria's city of Plovdiv.

Bulgaria's annual canned food production is about 150 000 tons per year while before 1994 it was about 1 million tons per year, the Institute Director, Pavlina Paraskova announced as quoted by BTA.

The Institute experts believe that the main problem of the Bulgarian canned food industry was the lack of guaranteed amounts of Bulgarian-grown agricultural products to fuel the production.

Only 30% of the food used by the Bulgaria canning industry is Bulgarian-grown; for examples, the tomatoes come from China. 80% of the canned peppers are import, and the dried onions that Bulgaria exports to Japan actually originated in Macedonia. The only food used by the Bulgarian canning industry that is 100% Bulgarian grown is the egg plant.

The Canning Research Institute believes that Bulgaria's Agriculture Ministry had to take measures in order to harmonize the Bulgarian legislation in that area in order to allow Bulgarian canning firms to use EU funds.

The Deputy Director of the Institute, Iliya Kafedzhiev, announced that the small and medium sized canned food producers in Bulgaria were about 150. Most of their production is exported to the EU; about 40% goes to Russia but the Russian market has collapsed since September 2008, and most of the produce is on storage in Bulgaria.

60-70% of the Bulgarian food processing plants have new equipment but because of the lack of steady agricultural supplies and funding they do not work at their full capacity. Part of the issues of the industry have to do with the low wages that fail to attract qualified laborers.

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