Urgent need for more public awareness on food safety and hygiene

Food in whatever guise it comes in, is food, and is consumed by human beings like ourselves, and microbes causing disease can thrive in any of these environs irrespective of class...

By Mrs Ramani Santhiapillai
Every Food Processing industry, big or small, should have a clearly defined obligation: that of providing safe and nutritious food to the consumer while making a profit. Products so offered must meet the consumer’s needs in terms of quality, quantity and variety at a reasonable cost. Today more than ever before, there is a worldwide trend towards meeting increasingly stringent customer expectations particularly with regard to food safety seen well amongst the established organisations, which are committed to delivering safe food to the customer. This is perhaps due to the realisation that sustaining high standards is an avenue leading to long-term profitability. This trend however is far more evident in the developed countries than the developing, the reason for this being that, a large segment of the population in developing countries have and will continue to have low levels of expectations brought about by poverty and lack of awareness. This is further aggravated by the fact that in cases where there is no consumer demand, the manufacturer would remain indifferent to the necessity of delivering safe and hygienic food to the consumer. However, amongst the more up-market manufacturers particularly in the cities, there is a growing understanding and a far better commitment to delivering safe food to the consumer.

Food industries in Sri Lanka vary from the common village bakery, the small restaurants selling rice and curry, recognised hotels that serve gourmet meals to the food processing industries that cater to their customers with food and food ingredients enrobed in attractive packaging. Food in whatever guise it comes in, is food and is consumed by human beings like ourselves, and microbes causing disease can thrive in any of these environs irrespective of class. Therefore the importance of food safety and hygiene must be taken seriously not only by the food manufacturer, but also the consumer as it is the consumer that can make the demands that the manufacturer will be compelled to meet.

There is undoubtedly a strong case to create food safety awareness .and spread the message of food safety amongst everyone in society. This awareness must be planted in the minds of the consumer as much as being created in the minds of the manufacturer.

Perhaps introduction of food hygiene/ Personal hygiene and the repercussions caused by the absence of these are best introduced at school level through education. Once learnt these practices grow up with the child and are rarely forgotten in adult life, leading to generations with awareness and importance of food safety.

On the other hand, a firm hand is needed in dealing with the food processing industry. Awareness buildup is crucial amongst this group. While we often believe that many suppliers and manufacturers of food are unconcerned about food safety, it is also true that many practice carelessness through lack of awareness of the repercussions.

One of the major obstacles to delivering safe food to the consumer is the absence of a realistic, not hard to adopt set of food laws and regulations/food standards, which are within the capability of compliance of the ordinary food manufacturer. Two of the important regulatory documents that are available at the moment are as follows:

The Food Act No. 26 of 1980
As the name implies, this is a legal document, which by law is mandatory. This document has been revised in 1998. This document pertains more to food additives and coloring, packaging, labelling requirements and advertising of food. The Food Laws are based on the CODEX Alimentarius (CODEX committee) and is imposed by gazette notification.

The H- 800
This deals with the setting up of an operation and is a licensing /reviewing/renewing document the requirements of which needs to be met with at the start of the venture, and thereafter reviewed/renewed annually. It deals with different relevant aspects of the industry which are important to good health and hygiene and categorise the requirements according to a point system, awarding points to each requirement such as location, buildings, kitchen, equipment raw material storage area, source of water, disposal of waste, finished product packaging, storage of same in different conditions(ex.. Showcase /refrigerator causing possible cross contamination), labelling, health of the food handlers and whether they have undergone training.

It must also be recognised that food safety starts in the field where the raw materials are grown and harvested, and must be pursued relentlessly right through the supply chain which involves storage of raw materials delivery, processing etc. In other words as oft said, ‘from the field to the fork.’

The location of a food processing facility is of primary importance. It must not only be located in a clean and hygienic environment, possess easy access to transportation facilities, have efficient machinery and a good team of managers and workers but also a good and safe supply of water important to maintaining good hygiene. Therefore, a location of a food processing facility must be chosen considering all these interacting factors.

The use of clean and uncontaminated water is an important facet of food safety. Food is often considered clean when washed. Nevertheless, if food is washed with contaminated water it is no longer clean, and may be even worse than before being washed. This is true also for utensile used in the food industry too. Therefore, the safety of the water supply of a food industry is very important

Weedicides & insecticides
Going further into the supply of raw materials, the effect of residual weedicides and insecticides in grain and other raw material are well known and must be recognised as health hazards. Importers and suppliers of raw materials for food manufacture must be made aware of these hazards, and their tolerance limits must be laid down and enforced. Processing, such as drying raw materials to safe moisture levels, use of safe and effective packaging materials, and storage facilities and transport of these materials must be addressed stringently. Before being received at the processing plant, the quality of the raw materials must be assured.

Storage of raw materials in dry safe conditions devoid of contamination by microorganisms and disease carrying vectors such as rodents and flies and roaches must be addressed. Therefore, the location of the storage facility is of dire importance. It must be remembered that if the raw material store has access to particularly cockroaches and rodents, it will also be a place they would be nurtured, thereby multiplying the numbers and the problem. Therefore, it is important to build up awareness not only among the owners of the facility but also among the employees.

Food handlers
The next item that awareness must be built upon is the hygiene of the food handlers. This is true whether it is of a five star hotel or a road side tea boutique serving meals. Large and organised manufacturers can afford to take many precautions such as checking their food handlers to find out if they carry infective microbes by subjecting them to regular health checkups. They can also afford to segregate workers only for the purpose of handling food. They can assess the surroundings and take swabs of machine parts and worktables to be sure of foolproof cleanliness. They can use harmless disinfectants for cleaning their machinery. Above all to ensure that they are educated and trained on food hygiene.

On the other hand what can the small timers do? If awareness is built up in them of the damage they may cause to the health of others, they can be encouraged to take many precautions thus far not practised. They can be encouraged to practice better personal hygiene, encouraged to use cheap food friendly materials as gloves and masks to use when they are handling food, take more care in washing raw materials before use, clean utensils properly so that they are free of stale food. Clean their working areas more carefully and keep the surroundings clean so that rodents and insect visitors are discouraged from infesting these areas.

Finished product – unloading & delivery
What about the finished product? A case in point is when the ordinary baker bakes bread, it is often unloaded from the oven on to the floor. The baker who practises this technique takes out sterile bread from the oven and dumps it on the floor that they walk on. The area close to the oven may perhaps contain less microbes but the floor is the floor, and can contaminate the bottom layers of the bread. If the area is not clean, flies may settle on the bread. Further bread is often stored and transported in unhygienic conditions. The bakers themselves if they are made aware of the danger caused, can be made to take simple alternative action to prevent this. Storage of products particularly sweet meats must be taken care of carefully, while they are stored after production awaiting transportation. A method can be easily devised to cover these items while in temporary storage. Even food items that are packaged must not suffer excessive heat during storage or the product may spoil.

The quality of packaging materials is vital, as perfectly good food if put into poor packaging will spoil and contaminate the food. This is not necessarily by microbes but also by residual chemicals etc. Therefore, packaging, materials that come in contact with food must be of food grade quality.

Food cannot only be contaminated during temporary storage e.g. Sweetmeats where flies love to settle on leaving behind thousands of infective microbes, but also during delivery. Attention must be paid to the delivery system, which is a common malpractice especially among the lower end of the food market. If awareness is built, the very existing methods can be improved upon by small adjustments and alterations.

Contamination in showcases is often due to flies. This has to be dealt with by the sales staff of the outlets. If they understand what havoc flies can cause to peoples lives, they would take greater precautions. Showcases must have small areas for various foods so that they can be opened for short lengths of time, the surfaces must be cleaned often, and the general cleanliness the surroundings must be improved, Where there are eateries side by side double the attention must be paid not to invite insect visitors.

Realising the status of increasing Food safety concerns and related Certification requirements imposed by Buyers , United Nations Industrial development Organization ( UNIDO) decided to include a component “ Strengthening International Certification Capacity in Sri Lanka with particular reference to Social Accountability Standard (SA8000) and Food Safety Management( ISO 22000/HACCP) Standard “ which is funded by Royal Norwegian Government in the phase two of their project Integrated Industrial Support Programme for the Ministry of Industrial development ,Sri Lanka. Having decided to established a chamber driven organization to implement this component , resulted in the establishment of Indexpo Certification (Pvt) Ltd which is a joint project of Ceylon National Chamber of Industries and National Chamber of Exporters.

Under this project Chambers and the Colombo Municipal Council will launch several initiatives including training of food handlers. Continuous development of the CMC relevant staff, upgrading the CMC laboratories and also introducing a new star grading system based on Food Safety.

Indexpo is the only registered center in Sri Lanka to conduct UK accredited internationally accepted training courses in Food safety of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (UK) (CIEH). CIEH is United Kingdom’s (UK) leading provider of accredited qualifications in food safety Health and Safety, and Environmental Management, and the institute itself has been in existence since the 1840s.

Last year 610,000 people successfully passed CIEH exams and got a certificate - presently over 7 million people are holding CIEH certificates in UK and abroad.

The CIEH trainer network is actively represented in 23 countries in the globe, mainly in the Gulf, China and Hong Kong, Australia, Thailand, India and Singapore – and now Sri Lanka.

Indexpo already has a batch of 8 national trainers registered by CIEH. It is hoped to conduct CIEH training in English, Sinhala and Tamil for the CMC food handlers so that at least one food handler will carry a recognised certificate of training in Food safety. A team of experts from the University Of Peradeniya, Department of Food Science will also provide expertise and resources to make this project a success.