DUBAI // Authorities must do more to regulate vegetables, fruit, meat and other perishable food brought into the UAE from neighbouring countries, to prevent outbreaks of food contamination, transport companies say.
There were also calls for the UAE to monitor equipment and temperature of vehicles carrying the goods as some of them are more than 40 years old and banned in Europe.
“There are no regulations in place for food coming from across the border and the equipment used to transport it,” said Paul McGarrigie, area manager for Middle East at Thermo King, which makes temperature control systems for trucks, ship containers and rail cars.
“If multinational companies have global standards for food handling and transportation that they follow in the US or elsewhere, it is also implemented here. But what we are talking about are the GCC and the UAE companies.”
Mr McGarrigie said at the sixth Middle East cold chain food safety conference, which ends today in Dubai, that food should be traceable from “field to fork”.
“We are talking about two things – where has the food come from and do we know how it has been transported?” he said.
Vehicles carrying food should be able to provide printouts at delivery to show the product had been kept at the required temperature from pick-up to destination, Mr McGarrigie said.
“Some of these trucks and equipment are 30 to 40 years old and were kicked out of Europe. They were used in Balkan Europe and are not permissible to be used any more. So why are we accepting them?”
Experts said they were trying to push for the adoption of the Association for Transportation of Perishable food stuffs, a UN code used by several countries.
“Ninety per cent of the food to the UAE is imported,” said Prakash Krishamoorthy, Truck and Trailer’s business development manager for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia.
“Currently there are no regulations, no specifications for the trucks or the units fitted to do the job. We need to know where the raw food came from to prevent outbreaks. We are trying to push the ATP to be followed here.”
Dubai Municipality said these points and would be examined.
“When we find contamination, we trace them to the hotels or restaurants,” said Bobby Krishna, principal food inspection officer at the municipality’s Food Control Department.
“But there is never an attempt to see how it was transported or what happened before. We have no idea. With more outbreaks, we might have processes to look back and not end investigations at restaurants.”
Consultants also called for the need for a unified food safety code across the UAE, and better communication from regulators.
“We don’t know about new regulations that are put in place by the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority,” said Riwa Shidiak, food safety manager at Boecker, a food control and biosecurity consultancy.
pkannan@thenational.ae
