Abu Dhabi: Customers may not find food handlers having long nails or wearing jewellery at small restaurants in Abu Dhabi, thanks to a new food safety management system.
Food handlers should keep their nails short and avoid using nail polish, jewellery and wrist watch, which may hide dirt on their hands, as per one of the Safe Operating Practices (SOPs) in the new system, named ‘Salamt Sadna’ (safety of our food). It offers a simple method to maintain safe practices and record essential food safety information.
Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) is implementing the system for about 2,500 small food businesses in the emirate which cater to more than 250,000 customers daily, who mostly belong to the low- and lower-middle income groups, a senior official told Gulf News on Monday.
A similar food safety system was earlier implemented for star hotels and catering units among the 12,000 licensed food businesses in the emirate, Dr Mariam Hareb Sultan Al Yousuf, executive director of policy and regulation at Adfca, said on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the new system.
About 25,000 food handlers in the small food business sector will learn safe practices such as cooking, chilled storage, cleaning high risk surfaces, washing fruit and vegetables, when and how to wash hands, protective clothing, personal hygiene, handling ready-to-eat foods, etc.
Pilot phase
In its pilot phase, officials imparted tips on five safe practices to 600 small food businesses in three regions of the emirate — Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western Region.
Around 60,000 food handlers in these businesses will be taught five more practices in the second phase. The remaining food handlers at 1,900 businesses will be trained in phases in the next year, Rashid Mohammad Al Sharqi, director general of ADFCA, said at the press conference.
The new system is part of implementing the International HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) standards, which were made mandatory for four- and five-star hotels since 2001 and catering businesses since 2010, Dr Mariam told Gulf News.
HACCP is a preventive approach to food safety and pharmaceutical safety that addresses physical, chemical and biological hazards as a means of prevention rather than inspection of finished products. The Food and Drug Administration of the US and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) say that their mandatory HACCP programmes for juice and meat are an effective approach for food safety and protecting public health.
Al Shariqi said the project has overcome the linguistic, educational, cultural, professional and technical challenges that face the authority while dealing with small food businesses.
In view of the linguistic diversity and inability to read or write in English or Arabic among managers and workers in food businesses in the UAE, the project was developed using photographs with a minimum number of words. The majority of managers (69 per cent ) and food handlers (73 per cent ) here speak Southern Asian languages such as Urdu, Hindi and Malayalam.