Tag Archives: person in charge

Indian state eyes Dubai model to ensure food safety

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My friend Bobby Krishna (right, pretty much as shown), senior food studies officer in the food control department of Dubai Municipality, is making inroads in india.

The Hindu reports the Kerala State Food Safety wing is looking to the Dubai Municipality food control department to help it develop food safety manuals and food inspection checklists so that the food safety initiatives here can be made more scientific and standardized.

A formal collaboration with the Dubai municipality for initiatives in improving food safety is also being contemplated, said Biju Prabhakar, commissioner of food safety, adding, “We thought of seeking the assistance of Dubai Municipality Food Control Department because even though their food safety initiative is fairly nascent, it is fully backed by science, is well-streamlined and has found considerable acceptance in the food industry too.”

Krishna told The Hindu here on Saturday that food safety was a global concern and had to be approached in a larger perspective, as a crucial component of public health, and a vital element of economy, especially with Kerala exploring its tourism potential in a big way.

“Just as it happened in Kerala, in Dubai too, the food safety drive gained momentum in 2009 following the death of two young children, reportedly due to food poisoning. It gave us the impetus to drive hard — the licensing process, grading of food businesses, hygiene and safety standards, classification of food items, and the shelf life of each… everything was fully backed by evidence. We also invested quite a lot on educating those in the business about the basics of food safety, like hygienic food handling and preventing cross-contamination etc,” Mr. Krishna said.

The first step in having a streamlined food safety management system is in getting everyone in the food business to take licences/registrations. There has to be a grading system for hotels/ eateries so that each works within its scope.

“You need to develop a good food safety team, which includes food safety experts, risk assessors, including biochemistry and microbiology experts, epidemiologists, all backed with international food safety resources. Food inspectors have to undergo rigorous training and follow standard procedure,” he said.

As for street vendors, he suggested that the government create ‘safe zones’ in various parts of the city where all safe processes and infrastructure for producing safe food could be provided by the government. Vendors could be given subsidy for utilising these resources.

The recent initiative of the Dubai municipality, called the Person-in-Charge (PIC) programme — an initiative that Kerala could emulate — was expected to make Dubai attain world-class standards in food safety.

Food safety improvements in Dubai; UAE is more than Sex and the City II

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I didn’t know Chapman knew Arabic.

But there he was, goofy pic and all (right, exactly as shown, any of them), in the Daily Bite at the Dubai food safety conference, saying something about how wonderful it all was.

In real news, Dubai is joining PulseNet International, which monitors foodborne bacteria through their DNA fingerprints.

Dr Peter Gerner-Smidt, a speaker at the conference and a member of the PulseNet International Steering Committee said the network offers real time surveillance resulting in early detection and warnings.

“If you routinely use PulseNet to detect outbreaks then you will detect many more outbreaks and you will also be able to solve them to derive what the causes are and using that information you can make food much safer,” he told Khaleej Times. “In Dubai, you import most of your foods. So I would think that a lot of the problems you are going to detect here will be present in other places in the world. So they will need to work with the PulseNet Middle East and Pulse Net International to make the investigation ?international.

Bobby ”Bobby” Krishna (pretty much as shown, left) Dubai’s Senior Food Studies and Surveys Officer said Dubai Municipality would be working in association with its counterpart in Abu Dhabi and the health authorities in both the emirates for becoming active partners in the network.

Kannangot Pallikkal Yousuf did not have a 12th grade pass certificate when he arrived in Dubai 13 years ago.

He found a job as a delivery boy with a supermarket under the Talal Group. In seven years, he climbed the ranks to become salesman, cashier and then to a hygiene supervisor. After six years’ of experience in that post, Yousuf has now earned a special recognition for his knowledge in food safety and hygiene matters, thanks to the Dubai Municipality’s Person-in-Charge (PIC) programme that mandates a food safety manager in every food outlet in Dubai.

Yousuf is now a PIC, supervising the hygiene and food safety matters in the Talal Supermarket in Deira YB Road.

The story of this 31-year-old Indian expatriate from Kerala is a classic example of how the municipality’s Food Control Department is revolutionising food safety in Dubai eateries by ensuring trained and certified personnel as food safety managers in each food outlet.

And there’s Chapman again PICs, restaurant and hotel managers and chefs will attend a workshop Thursday to enhance their skills in managing food facilities so that employees are trained on processes with validated hazard control. The workshop titled “Person in Charge-Plan and Control of Food safety in Retail Food Operations” is being organized as a post-event session of the 7th Dubai International Food Safety Conference that concluded on Wednesday.

Dr. O Peter Snyder, founder and president of Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in Minnesota and Dr. Ben Chapman, an assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University will conduct the workshop at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

And while I left before the closing day of the 7th Dubai International Food Safety conference, which apparently hosted a “cream of experts in the field of food safety,” because I had already been there for 12 days, which was the longest I’d been away from wife and child – ever. Chapman and I hung out by the pool and e-mailed each other about future research, but on my last night, the wind was so strong it impacted the wireless and we returned to our respective rooms. See you in a few more years. Attendance is not a criteria for teaching, research or extension. Performance is.

Happy birthday, Pete.