Food safety

The recent spate of detections of food items unfit for human consumption has raised alarm among consumers many of whom buy goods including food items without even a cursory inspection, trusting the boutique keeper or the supermarket.

Food fraudsters have apparently found novel methods to pass off expired food items as “new” stocks, much to the detriment of consumers islandwide. It was found that these errant traders had washed expired stocks of imported dhal and sprats and released them to the market as new stocks to dupe unsuspecting consumers and earn a tidy profit for their shady companies. There have also been instances where animal feed had been dressed up as human food.

The question that arises immediately is, how did these stocks of foods unfit for human consumption reach Sri Lanka? They have been apparently smuggled into the country, having gone past the Customs. The Customs cannot be expected to scrutinise every container that comes in, though they have made several spectacular detections of food and non-food items that are not in line with our regulations.

Sri Lanka lacks a separate food inspection agency, which functions as a State regulatory body in many countries. The most well-known example is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. The Health Ministry and the Public Health Inspectors are far too stretched to engage this task, even with Customs help.

It would be beneficial for the authorities as well as consumers to establish a separate full-time body for inspecting food items at the port(s) of entry and at warehouses/stores within the country, apart from the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA). This would enable the authorities to regularly inspect food stocks to verify their suitability for human consumption. The officers should also be empowered to decide on another use for unsuitable food items (i.e. as animal feed, fertiliser etc) or destroy them.

Storage

Special attention should be focused on storage conditions at warehouses. Do they maintain the right temperature and humidity levels? Do they have a proper ventilation system? Do they have proper ways of handling the food stocks to ensure zero contamination? Do they have proper lighting levels? If these conditions are not met properly, even ‘good’ food stocks may go stale and unfit for our consumption. Periodic checks must be conducted on food warehouses and action should be taken against any errant ones to protect the consumer and prevent wastage.

However, it is not only warehouses which are guilty of storing food items in a negligent manner, but also general stores around the country. For example, many wayside boutique owners turn off the refrigerators at night to save on the electricity bill. In one such instance, a boy who consumed sausages bought from a store which switched off its freezer every night died as a result of food poisoning. Moreover, if the goods are not stored properly according to the instructions of the manufacturer (i.e. store in a cool, dry place; store at -18 Celsius), the indicated expiry date may no longer be valid as chemical reactions in the foods can turn them unfit for consumption.

Wastage is another major challenge facing the local food industry. Sometimes called post-harvest losses, a large quantity of fruits and vegetables go waste during transport and storage. The use of plastic crates has reduced the amount of wasted vegetables but many more steps will have to be taken to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, food waste.

Sri Lanka also does not have a clear strategy on preventing the waste of in-season vegetables and fruits. We have seen sacks of vegetables rotting by the wayside because there are no buyers to take them even for a pittance. In any case, there is no use buying any more stocks when the market is saturated. Export markets can be found for certain vegetables and fruits.

Other vegetables and fruits can be canned for local consumption and export markets. We tend to associate cold rooms exclusively with meat and fish, but they can also be used to keep vegetables and fruits for a longer period. Such excess stocks can be released to the market when the vegetables and fruits in question are “out of season”.

This way, these vegetables and fruits will be “in season” throughout the year. A lot of foreign exchange can be saved if only the required amount of vegetables and fruits that cannot be grown locally is imported. The wastage of such fruits and vegetables is actually a crime, because valuable foreign exchange is wasted in the end.

Concept

Most consumers are now familiar with the expiry date concept, but we generally forget to look at the production date. That is also important, since it indicates freshness. So far, only milk power packets have the manufactured date and packeted date given separately, but there is no reason why it cannot be extended to most other packaged foods. There should not be an inordinate period between manufactured and packeted dates, as there is a possibility of the food item being adversely affected in the meantime.

The recent milk power pricing issue also brought to the fore another “market mechanism” that is perhaps unique to Sri Lanka: hoarding.

The moment a price increase is in the air, most traders hide their current stocks of the given item and pretend that their stocks are over. If and when the price increase is approved, these “sold out” stocks re-appear as if by magic, conveniently labelled with the new price. The trader gets a net profit over and above the normal margin given by the manufacturer. This practice must be stopped to protect consumers.

The CAA is rendering a yeoman service amidst various constraints and there is no doubt that a separate food agency will be of immense help. The CAA too should be strengthened to ensure that it can effectively carry out its mandate throughout the island.

The storage, handling and distribution of food items require the highest standards of hygiene and all possible steps should be taken to ensure that the customer gets the best.