Trained and certified food safety managers will be mandatory for over 2,000 food trading companies in Dubai from January 2013.
The
Dubai Municipality’s Food Control Department has mandated food safety
manager titled Person-in-Charge or PIC in trading companies so that they
can liaise with exporters to avoid non-compliance with local
regulations and reduce food wastage due to rejection of imported food.
The implementation of the PIC programme in the food trading sector in Dubai is the second phase of the project aimed at ensuring food safety at all levels of food business.
In the first phase, which began in this January, the municipality focused on high-risk establishments like restaurants, catering companies and cafeterias for appointing PICs who are responsible for conducting self inspections and ensuring compliance with food safety regulations at their respective food establishments.
Addressing a forum for food traders on Wednesday, the director of the department, Khalid Mohammed Sharif Al Awadhi, said the municipality would strictly ensure PICs at trading firms from next year.
“We were supposed to launch the PIC programme for the trading sector this year. But, we had to postpone it due to certain practical difficulties. We have now decided to launch it from the beginning of next year,” he said.
There are over 160 countries from where 90 per cent of food products are imported to Dubai. However, thousands of tonnes of food products are rejected every year at Dubai ports, largely due to the exporters’ lack of knowledge about Dubai’s stringent food safety regulations.
PICs with the trading companies are expected to tackle this wastage by properly communicating the local regulations and standards to the manufacturing companies in the country of origin.
Bashir Hassan Yousif, Food Safety Expert at the municipality, said the move was part of Dubai’s ‘source control’ plans.
“We think that we have more problems with food source due to the fact that we import more than 90 per cent of food. Whatever we do here will be useless if the food that comes from outside has some level of contamination or toxin or banned substance.”
With the food control officials having no direct access to exporters, he said, the PICs of trading companies have to clearly communicate the municipality’s food safety objectives to them so that they know what all criteria they must comply with.
“The trading companies’ PIC will be receiving the goods at the ports and he should be the inspector before ours and make sure that all consignments are safe for consumption,” said Yousif.
In 2011, Dubai rejected nearly 45,000 tonnes of food products, most of which were denied permission due to non-compliance with the municipality’s food labeling requirements.
Officials said the emirate has considerably reduced the quantity of food rejected by using an effective electronic system for food import and exports. It is now aiming at reducing it further through the PICs in trading companies.
“When there is higher level of compliance, there is lesser burden on us and the manufacturing companies, and food wastage will come down drastically.”
The department has already held direct talks with official delegations from major food exporting countries like India and Thailand. It’ll have the next round of discussion with Brazil.
“We are talking to the delegations in the source countries about our regulatory bodies and standards. We are sure that violations will fall drastically when the PIC programme is implemented in a full-fledged manner,” said Yousif.
sajila@khaleejtimes.com
The implementation of the PIC programme in the food trading sector in Dubai is the second phase of the project aimed at ensuring food safety at all levels of food business.
In the first phase, which began in this January, the municipality focused on high-risk establishments like restaurants, catering companies and cafeterias for appointing PICs who are responsible for conducting self inspections and ensuring compliance with food safety regulations at their respective food establishments.
Addressing a forum for food traders on Wednesday, the director of the department, Khalid Mohammed Sharif Al Awadhi, said the municipality would strictly ensure PICs at trading firms from next year.
“We were supposed to launch the PIC programme for the trading sector this year. But, we had to postpone it due to certain practical difficulties. We have now decided to launch it from the beginning of next year,” he said.
There are over 160 countries from where 90 per cent of food products are imported to Dubai. However, thousands of tonnes of food products are rejected every year at Dubai ports, largely due to the exporters’ lack of knowledge about Dubai’s stringent food safety regulations.
PICs with the trading companies are expected to tackle this wastage by properly communicating the local regulations and standards to the manufacturing companies in the country of origin.
Bashir Hassan Yousif, Food Safety Expert at the municipality, said the move was part of Dubai’s ‘source control’ plans.
“We think that we have more problems with food source due to the fact that we import more than 90 per cent of food. Whatever we do here will be useless if the food that comes from outside has some level of contamination or toxin or banned substance.”
With the food control officials having no direct access to exporters, he said, the PICs of trading companies have to clearly communicate the municipality’s food safety objectives to them so that they know what all criteria they must comply with.
“The trading companies’ PIC will be receiving the goods at the ports and he should be the inspector before ours and make sure that all consignments are safe for consumption,” said Yousif.
In 2011, Dubai rejected nearly 45,000 tonnes of food products, most of which were denied permission due to non-compliance with the municipality’s food labeling requirements.
Officials said the emirate has considerably reduced the quantity of food rejected by using an effective electronic system for food import and exports. It is now aiming at reducing it further through the PICs in trading companies.
“When there is higher level of compliance, there is lesser burden on us and the manufacturing companies, and food wastage will come down drastically.”
The department has already held direct talks with official delegations from major food exporting countries like India and Thailand. It’ll have the next round of discussion with Brazil.
“We are talking to the delegations in the source countries about our regulatory bodies and standards. We are sure that violations will fall drastically when the PIC programme is implemented in a full-fledged manner,” said Yousif.
sajila@khaleejtimes.com
