Dubai Municipality campaign focuses on safety of egg-based products … reports Asian Lite News.
Dubai Municipality’s Food Safety Department on Monday launched a week-long campaign called “Together for Food Safety,” aimed at raising awareness about food safety while shopping, cooking and preparing food.
Sultan Ali Al Taher, Acting Director of Food Safety Department opened the campaign at Lulu Hypermarket in Al Warqa. Throughout the week, the “Together for Food Safety” campaign will be held in various hypermarkets in Dubai.
“Since food safety is part of our everyday life, we organize awareness campaigns each year with main focus on shopping, handling and cooking food. This year’s focus will be on the safety related to egg-based products,” said Al Taher.
“As many egg-based products such as tiramisu, chocolate mousse, and garlic paste use raw eggs as part of their recipes, the Food Safety Department aims to emphasize the importance of proper handling, cooking and storing of eggs,” he said.
Giving a few simple steps tips to help keep the food safe, Al Taher said, it is always necessary to make sure to buy eggs that are refrigerated and place them in the coldest part of the car.
“While shopping, it is always safe to pick up the frozen meats at the end. When buying canned food, the customer should make sure it is not damaged in any way and after buying groceries, the food items should be taken home and stored immediately,” he added.
“Since food safety is the primary concern of any society, we are trying our best to engage all segments of the society. We hope that creating awareness during the shopping time itself will prove to be more effective,” Al Taher pointed out.
He added that Dubai has always been in the forefront of all food safety related initiatives whether it is highly effective awareness campaigns, continuous and multiple rounds of inspections to ensure food safety or international conferences and exhibitions with the involvement of global experts in food safety.
Jehaina Hassan Al Ali, Head of Awareness and Applied Nutrition Unit said that the event will be an ongoing affair and each time one element or other related to food safety will be taken up as the focus of the campaign.
She said the element of safety related to egg-based products was chosen after a survey finding on food-borne illnesses showed that the majority of outbreaks were related to egg-based products.
Al Ali added that Dubai Municipality has started conducting workshops for food handlers regarding the different safety aspects that are to be taken care of during the storage and preparation of food items. “The first workshop conducted at the Municipality Center at Al Kifaf was attended by 100 people. We will continue to have more such workshops in the coming days with the participation of more food handlers,” she said.
