Dubai's cleanest kitchens to be 'named and famed'

Dubai Municipality’s food-safety department will launch ‘Name and Fame’ awards to celebrate some of the emirate's safest food and beverage operators in November. 

The awards will form part of November's Dubai International Food Safety Conference, the municipality announced during a conference at Gulfood 2013.

Dubai Municipality also shared statistics regarding the emirate’s performance in tackling food safety issues over the last  12 months.

Out of approximately 10,000 food and beverage outlets operating in Dubai, 55% are categorised as 'high risk' potential involving food preparation.

It was also revealed that complaints about food and beverage outlets fell to 2375 in 2012, from 3015 in 2011 while punishments for violations increased with the number of outlet closures rising to 191 in 2012 from 97 in 2011.

One of the municipality’s current initiatives that have helped to contribute to these figures is the ‘Person in charge’ (PIC) scheme which makes it mandatory for food and beverage premises to have a fully trained and certified food safety representative on site at all times responsible for staff training, maintain standards and liaising directly with Dubai municipality inspectors.

Future initiatives proposed by the department include more stringent inspections for F&B premises for within shopping malls. There are currently more than 1000 F&B outlets in Dubai’s shopping malls, 15% of the emirates total and 67% of which are considered high risk.