Dubai Municipality has organized a number of awareness-raising campaigns remotely in the field of food safety, using modern electronic means and social media channels, reflecting its belief in its role of creating awareness in the society to ensure the highest levels of health and safety.
These campaigns targeted consumers as well as food establishments to ensure commitment to the application of safe and hygienic practices during handling and preparing food at home and in food establishments. The campaign highlighted the most important information to ensure food safety for the consumer, starting from the safe shopping trip to the proper methods of storing food and preparing it at home. Also, a set of advices was provided on ordering food and food products through smart apps, including foods prepared in restaurants or food products from grocery stores and electronic stores.
Dubai Municipality has issued a list of requirements for food delivery services through the temporary guide for food establishments in the emirate, to ensure community safety and awareness and training of workers in those establishments. The managements of these companies and their employees have been trained in the necessary controls to ensure the application of food safety and public health standards during the food delivery process.
The training included organizing a number of sessions remotely for more than 550 food establishments using electronic means, in order to clarify all requirements and conditions for workers. These training sessions will continue to ensure the readiness of these establishments to obtain the permits needed to restart in order to ensure the safety of consumers.
An awareness video was also posted on social media to enhance community confidence in food safety and educate them about the measures taken to ensure their safety and that of their families.
In conjunction with the holy month of Ramadan, many awareness messages targeting the safe consumption of food are being published, in addition to organizing interactive competitions through social media channels in partnership with Barakat, which has given a number of online shopping vouchers to the winners of the competition.
Believing in the joint responsibility to ensure food safety for all, a number of partners from among the retail stores, hypermarkets and supermarkets, such as Lulu, Aswaq, Choithrams, Emirates Cooperative Society and others, have participated in the Together for Food Safety campaign, during which messages and awareness films were broadcast by these stores through their social media channels to reach the largest number of consumers.
The awareness efforts for the food establishments will continue through the Foodwatch portal using the Foodwatch Messenger messaging feature, where updates are sent about the requirements and circulars for those establishments in the field of food safety. The remote learning feature has also been provided to more than 22,000 food establishments and food service providers registered on the Foodwatch platform, in order to ensure effective communication and participation.
The outreach efforts also included school students. Workshops and broadcasts of educational films in the field of food safety are provided using electronic means for remote learning. This also included sending out educational messages about proper nutrition, accompanied by recreational activities for children to about 200 schools in the Emirate of Dubai, so that children benefit from it during their spare time and their knowledge level on appropriate foods are enhanced in order to achieve the necessary balance in their diets.
