3.5 million food shipments were imported from 114 countries for the global exhibition
Dubai Municipality/Twitter
The Dubai Municipality inspected and cleared around 3.5 million tons of imported food for Expo 2020 Dubai from 114 countries. Food Safety Department teams checked shipments for compliance with approved requirements and specifications; and the process of releasing each took about 20 minutes.
These came as the Dubai Municipality announced on Wednesday that all Expo food outlets were complying with the emirate’s food safety rules. Not a single case of food poisoning was recorded during the six months of Expo 2020.
Sultan Al Taher, director of the Food Safety Department, said the civic body’s efforts ensured the health and safety of more than 24 million people who visited the Expo.
“We had started our work well in advance by providing the support and food safety requirements necessary for setting up points of sale in international pavilions. We checked their compliance after completion, in addition to carrying out a complete follow-up.
“We had an integrated plan for controlling food, starting with importing, storing, preparing and transporting it, and then selling it at the Expo site.”
He said about 2,500 new food items had been registered at the event site.
“Our teams carried out 3,389 periodic inspection visits using the smart system, in addition to daily follow-up visits to verify compliance with food safety requirements throughout the six months,” Al Taher added.
Approximately 90% of the total participating outlets were rated “excellent” (A) and 10% were rated “very good” (B).
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“Results of tests carried out on food samples showed that they met the approved specifications almost 99%,” Al Taher explained.
He said the civic body held training sessions for participating outlets on the food safety requirements applied in Dubai.
