Dubai: Dubai Municipality on Thursday announced various inspection campaigns to be conducted during Ramadan to ensure the commitment of food establishments and customers to the hygiene requirements and preventive precautionary measures for ensuring food safety.
Sultan Ali Al Taher, head of the Municipality’s Food Inspection Section, stated in a press release that various campaigns will be organised during Ramadan to ensure food establishments meet the requirements for transporting, storing, preparing and displaying food products and material.
Pre-Ramadan preparations
He said the inspection campaigns will include a campaign before the start of Ramadan on food warehouses, focusing on food products that are frequently traded in Ramadan to ensure that they comply with food safety standards.
Periodic campaigns
“It will be followed by periodic campaigns that will commence at the beginning of Ramadan in sales outlets such as consumer complexes and hypermarkets, to make sure these outlets adhere to health requirements during the storage, display and sale of traded foodstuffs,” said Al Taher.
Focus on markets
“There will be another campaign on markets such as the Central Fruit and Vegetables Market and the Waterfront Market, where consumers’ shopping increases during Ramadan. These inspections will be conducted with the aim of ensuring the safety of fresh food products in the markets, which are usually perishable, in order to ensure compliance with display, storage and circulation in accordance with food safety requirements,” he added.
Fried food items
He informed that in the interest of preserving the health of consumers and ensuring the safety of prepared food that are consumed more as part of iftar meals, all necessary preparations have been completed by intensifying visits and inspections of establishments producing and preparing these meals by specialised inspection teams, as consumption of fried food items will be more during Ramadan.
“Therefore we will focus on the quality of the oil used in frying food items and ensure the safety of places of storage, food preparation, methods of cooking, preserving and transporting them,” said Al Taher.
Personal hygiene
“We also ensure the commitment of employees in offering the food by maintaining personal hygiene, wearing gloves and head cover and the availability of professional health cards for them, in addition to adhering to the temperatures at which food is preserved after preparation, which is more than 65° Celsius for hot storage and less than 5° Celsius for cold storage,” he said.
Traditional food
With regard to traditional foods and the like, increasingly popular during the holy month, which are prepared and cooked in popular kitchens, Al Taher stressed that the focus will be on the preparation and thermal control of food and food transport vehicles and to ensure the extent of their commitment to the technical conditions and specifications.
Best practices
He added that the various inspection teams have been directed to focus on food establishments, especially popular kitchens and bakeries, and to ensure that best practices are applied during the preparation, cooking, storage, display and transportation processes to prevent contamination of these products.
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Al Taher added: “The monitoring and inspection process during Ramadan include ensuring food establishments’ adherence to COVID-19 precautionary and preventive measures and avoiding crowding, especially in the different sales outlets at peak times”
Reporting food safety concerns
Al Taher called on the public to contact the Municipality Call Centre on 800900 around the clock if they have any complaint against any food establishment and also to inquire about the various health requirements related to food safety.
