On Thursday 18 May 2017, Dubai Municipality ordered the temporary closure of 61 food outlets due to hygiene violations.
“These food establishments have been given a short period of time to modify their status and clear all the violations related to hygiene and unhealthy practices, expired foodstuffs, and spoiled foods,” said Sultan Al Taher, senior official in the Food Safety Department, Dubai Municipality.
Inspectors carried out 8,072 inspection visits during the first three months. A total of 822 consumer complaints were received.
“The visits showed 380 complaints (46 percent) were incorrect and 442 complaints turned out to be true and were dealt immediately,” Al Tahir added.
But before this unfortunate incident, over 820 food centers in Dubai after thorough inspections received “excellent and gold” rating in the first quarter of 2017.
Some of the costumers/consumers complained about several unhygienic issues such as , general hygiene, not wearing gloves, insects in food establishments, presence of foreign objects in food, problems with menus with no details about ingredients that may cause allergies, sale of expired materials, presence of spoiled foods, the poor ventilation/ storage of food, and other unhealthy practices committed by workers.
With the total to 16,657 outlets, records of Food Safety Department of the Municipality show that there was unexpected 10 percent increase in the number of food establishment in the first quarter of 2017.
