Compliance requirements
The bidder must confirm that neither it nor its representatives or management body members are subject to grounds for exclusion. These grounds include final convictions for participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorism-related offences, money laundering, terrorist financing, child labour or human trafficking. They also include breaches of tax or social security payment obligations, bankruptcy, liquidation or insolvency proceedings, suspended business activity, serious professional misconduct, anti-competitive agreements, unresolved conflicts of interest and serious breaches of previous public contracts. Exclusion may also result from false information, failure to provide required information or documents, improper influence of the contracting authority, breaches of environmental, social or labour law obligations, enabling the employment of an unlawfully staying foreign national, breach of international sanctions or convictions for tax offences. The threshold for tax and social security debt is stated as EUR 0; under Estonian rules, a tax debt certificate is not issued for a debt below EUR 100 or for rescheduled tax debt. The bidder must also confirm that the offered goods are not subject to sanctions and do not originate from sanctioned regions, and that it will not involve prohibited Russia-linked subcontractors or suppliers for more than 10% of the contract value. Where an exclusion ground applies, the contracting authority may, where permitted, assess measures taken to restore the bidder’s reliability.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
The bidder must be registered in the relevant commercial register of its country of establishment. For an Estonian bidder, registration in the Commercial Register will be checked independently; a foreign bidder must provide registration evidence upon request. For all 13 lots, the bidder must hold recognition from the Agriculture and Food Board or an equivalent food-handling licence or recognition in its country of establishment. The bidder must provide information on intended subcontractors and their percentage share of the contract and, where it relies on a subcontractor’s capacity, submit separate European Single Procurement Documents for those subcontractors. For this supply contract, the bidder must be prepared to provide required product samples, descriptions or photographs and, where necessary, authenticity evidence; samples must be delivered within three working days of the contracting authority’s request. For each offered product, the bidder must provide composition, shelf life, packaging size and type, manufacturer and country of origin, together with any other documents needed to verify compliance with the technical specification. The tender must be unconditional and alternative tenders are not permitted. Prices must be submitted in the required format as the total value for each lot, excluding VAT, and a completed detailed price offer based on Annex 1 must also be provided; the totals in both price submissions must match. In a joint tender, a power of attorney for the joint tenderers must be included. The machine-readable notice did not specify any exact turnover, previous experience or team requirement.