Authority discards 1.4mkg unhygienic food items in one year

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety and Halal Food Authority (FS&HFA) inspected 1,84,873 food related businesses across the province in one year.

The KP FS&HFA released the performance report, which states that the Food Safety teams seized and discarded 1,474,160 kilograms/liters substandard, fake and unhygienic food items from various production units, wholesale dealers, hotels, restaurants and other food-related businesses.

The Food Safety teams, during the inspections, have served 31,136 warning and improvement notices to various businesses. According to the data, the Food Safety Authority, upon severe violations, has sealed 2,072 food related businesses in various areas of the province.

During the last one year, fines worth Rs62.2 million have also been imposed on food related businesses involved in unhealthy practices. Similarly, over 26,000 licenses have been issued to food outlets.

Among the districts, most of the inspections were recorded in Peshawar, where 30,787 units were inspected for ensuring food hygiene. The Food Safety teams, in Peshawar city alone, have discarded around 500,000 kilograms/liters of food items.

With such actions, the Authority has equally focused on the awareness and training of the food handlers, food outlets’ owners and individuals. The Authority has provided food safety level one training to around 8,000 food handlers around the province.

Over 3,000 awareness sessions in various marketplaces for larger awareness related to safe and healthy food in the province have been conducted. These sessions were attended by a large number including people attached with food businesses, general public and students in schools. The data of the report were compiled for 12 months, i.e. from April 2021 to April 2022.