“Bugs in khachapuri, worms in pâté”: Radio Liberty exposes food problems in Georgia’s prisons
Prison food problems in Georgia
Eight days after Radio Liberty published an investigation into food in Georgia’s prisons revealing systemic problems and hundreds of violations, the penitentiary service terminated its long-term contract with the supplier Ili Group.
The investigation showed that the penitentiary service had been aware of violations for years, yet the company kept its contract and received tens of millions of lari from the state budget.
Investigation that triggered the decision
The report, published on March 4, revealed internal inspection documents from the penitentiary service. They showed that Ili Group had systematically violated contract terms and supplied low-quality food to prisoners for six years.
The materials, made public after a court dispute, included inspection reports from 2019–2025 describing hundreds of violations.
Despite this, the contract remained in force, and the state paid the company more than 180 million lari (over $66 million) for prison food.
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What changed
Several days after the investigation, the penitentiary service took action. On March 10 it imposed a penalty of about 600,000 lari ($221,000), seized a 1.1 million-lari ($405,000) bank guarantee, and unilaterally terminated the contract.
A new supplier was then selected through a fast-track procedure without a tender. Since March 12, the company Giorgi 2020 has been responsible for providing food in prisons.
Under the new contract, the company must feed about 11,800 prisoners and 2,126 staff members for two months, with more than 11 million lari ($4 million) allocated from the state budget.
According to the business registry, the company is directed by Natia Archvadze, with Vakhtang Lomeineishvili and Otar Kvaratskhelia as owners. The penitentiary service said the company was chosen after a market review as the only one able to start service immediately.
Long list of violations
Official documents show that 375 violations by Ili Group were recorded between 2023 and 2026.
Fines totaled 34.8 million lari (about $12.6 million), although only about 3.1 million lari were actually paid to the state.
Violations included poor product quality and breaches of hygiene and food preparation rules. Inspection reports described cases where:
- food was spoiled or contaminated;
- sausages of unknown composition were used instead of meat;
- frozen meat was supplied instead of fresh products;
- portions were reduced and ingredients missing;
- insects or larvae were found in food.
In some cases the problems were particularly striking: inspectors found bugs in khachapuri and larvae in pâté.
In other cases hundreds of portions had to be discarded due to contamination.
In January 2026, a sheet of paper was found in a meal portion intended for a prison employee.
Why the contract lasted so long
According to a memo from the penitentiary service’s economic department, the largest fines – about 29 million lari ($10.7 million) – were imposed between November 2024 and August 2025.
However, the contract was not terminated earlier because authorities feared disruptions in providing food to prisoners and detainees.
Violations continued afterward: 48 more cases were recorded between August and December 2025, and nine more by February 2026.
Eventually, before the contract was canceled, the agency reported that some products – including flour for baking bread – had run out in prisons, raising the risk that food supplies could stop entirely.
Position of Ili Group
Iasha Chachua, director of Ili Group, says the penitentiary service’s decision is unfair.
According to him, the penalties were deducted from the company while some of them were already being challenged in court. Chachua argues that this was illegal and created financial problems that made it difficult for the company to continue supplying food.
He also says he had proposed terminating the contract by mutual agreement.
Chachua claims that everything happened “deliberately and according to a plan,” and that the conclusions about violations do not reflect reality.
According to him, the company has been operating on the market for 17 years, and if such problems had really existed, it would not have survived that long.
Company ties and state contracts
Ili Group was founded in 2008, but its main government contracts grew significantly after the current ruling party, Georgian Dream, came to power in 2012.
According to official data, contracts with various state agencies brought the company more than 250 million lari ($92 million). A large portion of this — about 180 million lari ($66.3 million) — is linked specifically to providing food for prisoners.
The company’s founders and related individuals have for years appeared among election donors to the ruling party.
The company also participates in food programs for socially vulnerable groups and supplies products to beneficiaries of free canteens in several cities.
Unanswered questions
The penitentiary service’s decision to terminate the contract has raised new questions.
Why was the contract not canceled earlier, when hundreds of violations had already been recorded? Why did the company not pay the full amount of the imposed fines? And what mechanisms should be in place to prevent similar problems in the future?
Journalists from Radio Liberty sent these questions to the penitentiary service but have not yet received a response.
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