“Just before the holy month of Ramadan we inspected 1,045 shops in various parts of Jeddah. Some of the major violations included food handling by employees,” said Bashir Abu Najm, director general of commercial licensing and monitoring at the Jeddah municipality. “We also found workers with no health certificates or expired health certificates.”

This comes less than a week after the municipal authorities increased inspections to restaurants and food establishments to ensure that shops are strictly adhering to health and safety regulations.

“We found violations in stores that served food in 41 shops located in Jamea in south Jeddah, 132 in New Jeddah, 18 in Aziziyah, 53 in food shops in southern Jeddah, 132 shops near the airport and 10 Dhahban,” said

Abu Najm.

“Most people shopping for food from street vendors usually don’t think much about hygiene, especially when purchasing traditional cooked food such as lamb kidney, sambousa and balila — it is part of the culture of eating out,” said university student Maher Ahmad.

“It is imperative from the municipality to curb on unhygienic street vendors, especially when there are many fast stores that needs to be inspected for serving clean food to avoid health issues,” said Adel Omar, father of three.