The Directorate of Environmental Health Service (DEHS) under the Lagos State Ministry of Health has sensitised food vendors, water manufacturers and food handlers on food safety management in the state.
The sensitisation program was conducted to ensure that food vendors and water manufacturers in the state produce safe and wholesome food and water for Lagosians.
Food vendors and water manufacturers were sensitised on food procedures, preservation, and sanitary and hygiene practice when preparing food by various experts in the country’s food and safety organisations.
“We discovered during our monitoring that food vendor and water manufacturers are not doing what they are supposed to do. If you look at the statistics in the hospital, there has been increase in the rate of food poisoning and the number of people having cancer is on the rise,” said Ajayi Theophilus Folarin, director, Directorate of Environmental Health Service said.
“This is because most of the foods coming into the country are not safe for consumption. They are carcinogenic,” Folarin said.
“We need more collaboration and active participation of food and vendors and water manufactures to ensure that food consume in Lagos and the country at large are safe and wholesome,” he added.
He noted that based on that DEHS is sensitising food vendors and water manufacturers on food safety procedures while calling them for active participation so as not to come short of the laws.
He stated that DEHS is giving focus on the requirements for food preparation and ensuring that food vendors adopt the laid down procedures in preparation of food.
Folarin added that there are laid down food safety procedures that most food vendors do not follow and the key of them all is the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan.
He says food safety can only be ensured in the state when there is compliance from food vendors, water manufactures and food handlers to safety laws.
“If we must ensure that we consume safe food and water in the state, then there must be compliance and commitment by food vendor and water manufacturers across the state,” he said.
He stressed that the main cardinal approach to food safety is sanitisation which involves proper waste disposal.
Speaking also during the sensitisation programme, James Marsh, president of the International HACCP Association of Nigeria said that HACCP is a food safety requirement that looks at the entire food chain holistically.
Answering questions on what it entails in getting HACCP certification and the affordability to the food vendors, he said that it varies from one establishment to the other.
“The price varies from one establishment from another, it is not one price fits all, so you look at the time; you look at the procedure you are going to write and the issues on the ground,” Marsh said.
“The HACCP plan has been embraced by the World Health Organisation and Nigeria just embraced it in 2018. It is now embedded in the country’s national food safety policy,” he added.
Josephine Okojie
