Dubai Municipality's Food Control Department has appointed food safety manager titled Person-in-Charge(PIC) in trading companies to cooperate with exporters to avoid non-compliance and reduce food wastage.
Trained and certified food safety managers will be mandatory for over 2,000 food trading firms in the country beginning January 2013.
Currently, the implementation of PIC program is the second phase. During the first phase, the municipality focused on high risk establishments like restaurants and cafeterias.
Addressing a forum for food traders, Food Control Department director Khalid Mohammed Sharif Al Awadhi said the municipality would strictly ensure PICs at trading firms.
About 90% of the food products are imported from over 160 countries but tons of them are rejected every year due to exporters lack of knowledge about the country's food safety regulations, reported Khaleejtimes.com.
PICs with the trading companies are expected to tackle this wastage by properly communicating the local regulations and standards to the manufacturing companies in the country of origin.