Food and Drugs Board sensitizes Tema food vendors
Tema, Sept 30, GNA - The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) on
Wednesday ended a series of food safety programmes in the Tema Metropolis
with a call on traditional caterers to observe basic food hygiene.
The last programme that was held at the Tema Community Nine Market
on Wednesday was the third in a series organized by the Board in the Tema
Metropolis and Ashaiman Municipality.
It aimed at sensitizing traditional caterers, vegetable, foodstuffs and fruit
sellers on principles in the selection and purchase of food items as well as
techniques to be employed during the transportation, storage and preservation of
those items.
The programme was on the topic: “Street Food Safety.”
Miss Maria Lovelace-Johnson, Head of the Food Safety Management
Unit at the FDB, said her outfit had realized that majority of food vendors were
either illiterates or semi-illiterates.
She said in the near future food vendors would be properly educated,
examined medically and issued with certificates, aprons and other things by the
FDB for identification.
Ms Lovelace-Johnson said consumers would then be able to identify
safe food from contaminated ones, adding,”at least one person from every
household in Ghana eats from outside their homes daily.”
On some basic hygiene tips, she said caterers must desist from the use
of artificial nails and painting of their fingers with nail polish, explaining that germs
could hide in the nails without notice, and transferred into food.
GNA