JEDDAH, 17 June 2006 — The Jeddah Municipality is equipping health inspectors with state-of-the-art portable devices to help monitor the quality of food being sold in shops and restaurants across the city.
Nasir Aljarallah, deputy head of Jeddah Municipality’s markets department, said, “Using these new gadgets inspectors will instantly be able to monitor the quality of food sold in restaurants, takeaways and shops.”
Aljarallah added that the gadgets would be useful to ensure that consumers are served hygienic and healthy food.
The new devices work with infra red rays and enable users to accurately measure acidic levels within cooked food and determine the quality of cooking oil.
He said the inspectors will also get gadgets to check how clean and hygienic surfaces, appliances and even workers are. Devices that help determine the freshness of fish and identify how long the fish have been out of water will also be given to them. The municipality hopes to train the inspectors to use the devices by the beginning of next month.
Aljarallah said with the introduction of these gadgets, the number of food poisoning cases would dramatically decrease and health standards would rise across the catering industry in the Jeddah region.
Last week three food outlets were shut down and seven others served notices to improve hygiene, Aljarallah said.
