Doha: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has intensified its control measures for imported food with the advent of the holy month of Ramadan, in addition to monitoring restaurants and food outlets’ compliance with health requirements.
In a statement, the Ministry affirmed its keenness to ensure the safety of food being sold to the public, and to ensure that the imported food conforms to health requirements.
The Ministry said it has set up monitoring mechanisms for food establishments, in cooperation with charitable organisation in the country, through which meals are prepared for the Iftar project, and distributed to workers and needy families.
The Ministry will ensure that food establishments comply with health requirements and COVID-19 precautionary measures, throughout food preparation inside the restaurant, packaging and transportation.
Director of Food Safety and Environmental Health at MoPH, Wassan Abdulla Al Baker, said the ministry is applying the highest standards to ensure food safety throughout the year, and is working to intensify its procedures, especially on occasions such as the blessed month of Ramadan.
She said the Ministry was also intensifying awareness of food safety through media. The awareness messages focus on the correct and safe methods for purchasing and handling foodstuffs, transportation, cold and dry storage, preparation and cooking, display, and sale, cleaning and disinfection, personal hygiene and healthy behaviour, in order to enhance awareness of the risks related to food and reduce the risk of food poisoning.
She called on importers, as partners in the process of ensuring food safety, to quickly register their products in the online foodstuff registration system, with the aim of using the registration data later in the modern electronic system for food control.
According to the statistics of the Ministry, during the first quarter of 2021, about 508,482,000 kg of foodstuff was imported through the various state outlets. Of it, 506,122,000 kg of imported food was accepted after ensuring that it complied with the technical requirements contained in the technical regulations and the relevant standard specifications. 2,370,000 kg of food was rejected for not meeting the standard requirements.
In addition, 1,692,000 kg of rejected food was re-exported, while 677,000 kg foodstuff was destroyed. As many as 927 different samples of imported food were collected and sent to the Ministry’s central food laboratories to demonstrate their compliance with the technical, microbial, chemical, physical, and radiological requirements and other requirements such as the halal requirements.
