Abu Dhabi: Food outlets in Madinat Zayed in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, including those that follow other food safety rules, were found to be violating a common rule on temperature.
All outlets in the central markets in Madinat Zayed were warned against malfunctioning or insufficient air conditioners that caused higher than permitted levels of temperature inside the shops, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) said on Sunday.
“Many of the food items have to be kept in low temperature, especially during summer, to avoid bacteria and other germs, that’s why our inspectors keep a close watch on this and take appropriate action,” Mohammad Jalal Al Reyaysa, Director of Communication and Community Affairs at ADFCA, told Gulf News.
He said temperature variation in meat shelves can cause serious food safety issues so ADFCA inspectors are using a sophisticated gadget to inspect meat products which gives the history of temperature maintained on them.
Al Reyaysa said the inspections in Madinat Zayed did not find the temperature variation on a serious scale so that only warnings were issued. “But if the outlets repeat doing so, we will issue fines and take other penal actions because such violations can cause serious health hazard,” the official warned.
The outlets were also instructed to install glass walls and automatic doors in the front in order to avoid fluctuation in the temperature inside, he said.
He asked the public to report such violation on the toll free number :800555.
In the pre-Ramadan special inspection drive on high-risk food outlets in Madinat Zayed the inspectors issued 19 warnings and destroyed 16 kilograms of food items. No violations were charged because of considerable improvement in adherence to food safety standards in general in the city, said a press release issued by ADFCA.
Targeting a total of 34 food outlets in the city which included restaurants, cafeterias, bakeries and confectionaries, meat and fish shops and the central market , the three teams of inspectors also tried to raise the level of food safety awareness among workers in the outlets.
The main reasons behind the warnings ranged from non-renewal of licenses, bad hygiene in food preparation areas, floors, refrigerators and freezers, unacceptable storing practices, non-use of metal tables for cleaning vegetables, non-availability of food-operated dustbins, not covering cooked food or not keeping them in required temperature levels, using cloth pieces instead of paper napkins for cleaning, not operating insect traps and leaving the dustbins open.
A number of bakeries were directed to improve their food safety practices in order to ensure full adherence to the standards. The most common failures in bakeries included products without expiry dates, workers not wearing head covers or wearing rings on their fingers, poor ventilation and incomplete or erroneous food labels, said the press release.
