CAIRO: Regulating food safety in Lebanon should not come at the cost of damaging business interests, experts in the field of food security said Thursday. Rather, future policies should strike a balance.
Weighing in on the latest high-profile food industry scandal that has dominated Lebanese headlines since Tuesday, when Health Minister Wael Abu Faour publicly named establishments discovered to be selling contaminated goods, senior specialists in the field said that despite the ministry’s clampdown, Lebanon has a long way to go before it can boast a healthy food industry.
“Sanctions should be used, but as a last resort,” said Fatima Hashem, senior nutrition and consumer protection officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The experts, who said safety was the main food-related issue plaguing Lebanon, spoke to The Daily Star on the sidelines of a regional workshop organized by the FAO for journalists in Cairo’s Marriot Hotel, covering the issue of malnutrition in the region.
Abu Faour has faced criticism from his colleagues in the Cabinet, notable Economy Minister Alain Hakim and Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon, who saw his move to name the supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants that are violating health codes – including by selling expired products such as meat and poultry – as destructive.
Abu Faour, meanwhile, appears determined to carry on with tough measures against violators, saying he would ask the Interior Ministry to shut them down until they complied with regulations.
Hashem explained that food-related violations in Lebanon were so commonplace for numerous reasons, including a lack of human resources to carry out regular inspections – Abu Faour’s nationwide campaign was unprecedented – and largely outmoded legislation governing food security.
“There aren’t enough inspectors to go to local outlets and inspect regularly,” she said. “And the method of inspection should be based on risk analysis, a more rational system, which is also not yet there. The numbers are not enough and the training needs to be better.”
Hashem said Lebanese laws regulating the food sector also needed to be updated so they took industry and consumer health considerations into account. “The issue is you need to protect the health of the consumer, and there are ways to work with the industry to do that. They could be your best allies in implementing food safety measures. So [in such a system] closing down businesses should be the last thing done.”
Ayoub al-Jawaldeh, regional adviser in nutrition for the WHO, was more categorical in his take: “Expired is expired. It means it’s not fit for human consumption and illegal, and [it is] the responsibility of the government to hold these [violators] accountable.”
In order to improve food safety in Lebanon, he said, the Health Ministry must strengthen legislation and enforce implementation, with close monitoring through the creation of specialized units that oversee all stages in the production chain, “from the farm to the fork.”
“But the Health Ministry can’t do it alone,” he said, emphasizing the collaborative work required with municipalities and other ministries to get the job done. He also recommended the formation of an independent monitoring body, similar to the Food and Drug Organization.
Hashem noted that despite the recent publicity, interest among Lebanese officials to regulate food safety began four years ago when serious efforts were made to modernize then-archaic laws.
“Modernizing a system to improve food safety takes time and takes a lot of investment. To abide by regulations you need a certain [infrastructural] setup,” Hashem said. “You need to have electricity all the time so that perishables do not go to waste.”
She commended the efforts being made by the Health Ministry to address food safety across the country, but warned “it is not yet enough.”
“It’s not because an enterprise is a well-known name that they are better in relation to knowledge about food safety or about what it takes, “ she said, referring to big name supermarkets and restaurants implicated by Abu Faour. “They need training, they need to know that there are staff from an independent body that is checking on them to see where their problems are.”
But, Hashem added, the latest scandal did not imply that Lebanon is worse off then its regional counterparts. “The consumer in Lebanon is highly aware about food safety issues, and a small incident has the ability to produce a large echo.”
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