Dubai: Restaurants and cafeterias in the old areas of Dubai will now be kept under the close watch of Dubai Municipality as part of the authority’s move to maintain the public’s health.
Khalid Mohammad Sharif Al Awadhi, Director of Food Control Department at Dubai Municipality, said the health and safety initiative focuses on shops that are reluctant to adhere to the suggestions of food control inspectors, and do not apply the information they learned in different training courses organised by concerned authorities.
“The department noted that some medium and low level food outlets get better for a short time and quickly commit many grave mistakes that adversely affect the safety of food offered by them,” said Al Awadhi.
“The department also noted that these food outlets have trained supervisors according to the requirements of the municipality, but they are not active in applying the sanitary regulations and the managements are not aware of the food safety culture in their organisation,” he explained.
He noted that this initiative is a follow-up of the mandatory health supervisor system introduced by the municipality about two years ago.
“As part of the programme, we will first identify the food establishments that cater to a large segment of consumers and then invite their health supervisors to attend the workshop to analyse their serious mistakes,” he said.
The specialists will also review the decorations, activities, type of food items prepared and the number of customers, while officials will also identify specific remedial steps based on an accurate analysis, which will then be followed-up by the inspector.
Sultan Ali Tahir, head of food inspection section at the municipality, added that this initiative is not part of its regular inspection as these food outlets need to correct their mistakes and should be able to have the cause of their errors identified, so they are not repeated.
