Drive to ensure vehicles transport food safely

With the Dubai Municipality (DM) launching the second phase of its safe food transportation campaign to crack down on vehicles not meeting food safety requirements, vehicles transporting food items in Dubai will come under the scanner.

Khalid Mohammed Sherif Al Awadhi, director of DM’s food control department, said the move comes as part of the civic body’s keenness to ensure a safe and healthy food trade and transportation in the emirate in line with the best international practices and standards.

The campaign is aimed at educating food traders on the basic requirements for food transportation vehicles, as stipulated by the food control department.

Many violations have been noticed in recent times.

In the first phase of the campaign, the municipality had issued a food safety and hygiene requirement guide for food transport vehicles. It gave approval to more than 9,000 vehicles to transport food.

“This step is highly significant since food transport forms an important part of food conservation and safety,” Al Awadhi said. “Many health-related problems have been caused due to the lack of food transport vehicles meeting hygiene specifications.”

He called up on all establishments dealing with food in Dubai to ensure their vehicles followed the hygiene requirements.

“Officers will monitor vehicles that violate the law and take action against offenders,” he added.

Transport vehicles are classified into different categories according to the type of foodstuff they carry: Dry, refrigerated, frozen or hot food. Stickers of different colours indicate the type of food they are transporting.

For instance, vehicles carrying refrigerated food have a green sticker, red for hot food, yellow for dry and orange for frozen food.

The details of hygiene requirements and procedures for vehicle approval are available on the DM’s portal https://portal.dm.gov.ae/SCWebUI/DataDetails.aspx?servicecode=2977&PageLang=En

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• UAE