The only place to buy genuine certified bio products in Bulgaria appeared to be the Piccadilly supermarkets in Sofia and Varna, according to a February 12 report by Bulgarian daily Dnevnik.

All other foods with organic production labels, ranging from "bio", "eco", "natural" to "from ecologically clean region", were making false claims aimed at winning consumers' trust, and raising the profits of the companies and producers, said Stoilko Apostolov, a PhD working for the Bioselena organic farming foundation. Bioselena is certified to issue the necessary authentication certificates for organic products.

Meanwhile, more than 500 Bulgarian certified organic foods' producers are exporting ecologically clean fruit and vegetables to European Union countries. These foods are planted in their natural environment without the usage of pesticides, fertilisers and other chemicals. Production of such foods is relatively small-scale, and it can be costlier than conventional agricultural methods.

Elsewhere in the EU, there is high demand for organic products because of the considerably lesser health risks. That a product is organic means that it does not contain hazardous chemicals that accumulate in the body.

A growing number of Bulgarians are also looking for such products on the market, so far without much success.

Further, the genuine articles are up against well-resourced competition from fakes.

At the end of 2007, checks organised by Bioselena in Bulgarian supermarkets uncovered several false claims. The offending companies were warned to change the misleading labels but the response was that the companies threatened court action.

Apostolov said none of the firms had filed court action against Bioselena, but most also had not removed the fake labels. Only Dobritch dairy products producer Fama removed the misleading sticker from their package.

The state authorities in charge - the State Veterinary Sanitary Control and Regional Inspectorate for Protection and Control of Public Health - also had not done urgent checks, Apostolov said.

According the regulations, if a product has not been produced according to the rules, offenders face fines of 1000 to 5000 leva, while for juridical persons the sanction varies from 5000 to 10 000 leva.