Dubai, United Arab Emirates - April 01, 2021: As part of Dubai Municipality's preparations for the month of Ramadan and to ensure the safety of the most traded food items during the holy month, various inspection campaigns will be organized throughout the month to enforce the commitment of food establishments and customers to the hygiene requirements and preventive precautionary measures.
Sultan Ali Al Taher, Head of the Municipality's Food Inspection Section, stated that various campaigns will be organized during the holy month to ensure the extent to which food establishments meet the requirements for transporting, storing, preparing and displaying food products and materials.
He said the inspection campaigns will include a campaign before the starting of the holy month on food warehouses focusing on food products that are frequently traded in Ramadan to ensure that they comply with food safety standards.
“It will be followed by a continuous periodic campaign that commences at the beginning of the holy month on sales outlets such as consumer complexes and hypermarkets, to make sure it includes adherence to health requirements during the storage, display and sale of traded foodstuffs,” said Al Taher. 
“There will be another campaign on markets such as the Central Fruits and Vegetables Market and the Waterfront Market, where consumers' shopping increases during the holy month of Ramadan. This inspection 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.
He informed that in the spirit of preserving the public health of consumers and ensuring the safety of prepared foods that are consumed more in Iftar meals, all necessary preparations have been completed by intensifying visits and inspections of establishments producing and preparing these meals by specialized inspection teams, as consumption of fried food items will be more in the month of Ramadan.
“Therefore we will focus on the quality of the oils 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.
“We also ensure the commitment of employees in offering the food by keeping 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° C for hot storage and less than 5° C for cold storage,” he said.
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.
He added that the various inspection teams have been directed for the need to focus during the period before the month of Ramadan and during the holy month 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, especially cross-contamination process with workers and equipment.
Al Taher explained that preparing for the blessed month of Ramadan has different focuses, firstly, the targeted food establishments, which receive increased number of public and visitors before and during the month of Ramadan, and the focus will be on all practices, the most important of which are preparation, making and thermal preservation processes, as well as protecting food from external contaminants.
“Secondly, we will ensure that food establishments meet the requirements for transporting, storing, preparing and displaying products and foodstuffs, through inspection tours organized for this purpose. Thirdly, we will focus on health awareness and education for workers in various food establishments, emphasizing the application of best hygienic practices, adherence to personal hygiene, wearing gloves and head cover, and also directing the hygiene supervisors (Person in Charge) in the food establishments on the need to carry out the task of supervising all processes that guarantee food safety,” he said.
Al Taher added that the preparation for Ramadan began through qualifying and preparing food inspection teams and organizing the process of field follow-up visits to food establishments within working groups on a shift system throughout the day, with the aim of ensuring full compliance with the application of the best food safety standards.
“The monitoring and inspection process during the holy month will include ensuring food establishments' adherence to Covid-19 precautionary and preventive measures and avoid crowding, especially in the different sales outlets at peak times. The official working hours for all inspection teams have been determined and distributed to different shifts, in proportion to the working hours during the month of Ramadan for the various food establishments. It is also made sure that the complaint reports and the foodborne disease investigation teams are ready for the month of Ramadan to receive the public's reports 24 hours a day,” he said.
Al Taher called on the public to contact the Municipality Call Center at 800900 around the clock in the event that there are remarks or reports on food establishments, and also to inquire about the various health requirements related to food safety.
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