Safe service

Food safety plays a major part in the success of F&B business, demanding constant effort from all involved; so how is the comparitively young UAE market faring? Industry professionals met up at Deira’s JW Marriott Dubai to find out

To what degree do you think the UAE has achieved food safety today?

Uwe Micheel: We’re on the way; most four-and five-star hotels are certified now. The big change is that 10 years ago, if I had a big event involving outside catering, I’d be worried about standards.

Now, nothing will happen as long as you follow proceedures correctly.

The next step is targeting free-standing restaurants. Some are operating fantastically — generally the ones connected to larger chains which have good production facilities — but when you look at some of the outlets, I still wouldn’t eat there.

Bobby Thulasi: From a government perspective, the volume of F&B business going on here is so high, it’s difficult to control.

At an industry level, we feel companies should be responsible for what they’re doing, but we help them to achieve that standard by supporting them with programmes. If you look at the launch of the Food Safety Management System, that was one way of making each organisation responsible; we also brought in HACCP for four- and five-star hotels and manufacturers, and now we are implementing programmes like MenuSafe that can be used for the smaller outlets.

While I think it’s important to encompass the low-budget restaurants as well, you have to consider the culture of some of these places: in most cases, hygiene isn’t a priority.

So we need to let operators know that although ignoring food safety may save money now, they will end up paying later by harming someone’s health or via reputation damage. We will be launching campaigns over the next few months to help these businesses understand what it means to be food safe and what the benefits are.

At the other end of the spectrum, we’re also in the process of tying up with the other emirates to formulate policies to ensure our suppliers and incoming products are controlled at the source.

Another major objective is to be able to quantify the success of food safety here. That is not possible at this point in time, but we’re working on it.

Kevin Wills: One really good thing about the Municipality’s approach to food safety is that, in many places I’ve been around the world, you feel like when you have an inspection it’s you against them.

That gets people thinking ‘What do we hide? What do we not do? What do we change?’ So the fact that Dubai Municipality is actually working with us, on the same side, means it’s an educational process, not just an inspect-and-punish system. That transparency really helps everyone and accelerates the process of corrective action.

Russell Impiazzi: In general I don’t think the top end of the market has many issues; the biggest problem facing the UAE now is that of the lower-ranking outlets.

Micheel: And private homes: how many housewives will keep a rice dish for a few hours, then put it in the fridge and warm it up the next day? People think you can’t get sick from rice, but it’s actually one of the most dangerous dishes for food poisoning. Plus nowadays, people are not as resistant to germs as they used to be.

Loraine Hughes: The thing is that food safety issues and consequently standards keep on changing; the goal we’re heading towards keeps moving further away.

Micheel: Exactly; what was good enough yesterday is not good enough today.

What options are available for restaurants outside big hotel chains, with regards to food safety programmes?

Impiazzi: We’re using MenuSafe, which is fantastic because it gives control to the chef, not the hygiene officer. The guys in the kitchen are in absolute control of what goes in there.

It can also be geared towards specific menus, so although the programme runs on the same basics, the particulars gear down to each dish — which is great, because an Asian restaurant is going to be different to an Italian restaurant, for example. Plus the training covers every level of staff, which I believe is the way forward.

Antonio Bautista: My view is that training is number one; that is where I think most people fail miserably. We like to think we don’t. Accountability at the chef level is key, because the safety officer can only be in so many places at one time. The chef is the person who can really drive all those on-site checks and raise the red flag if something is wrong.

Muhammad Qamar: Looking at the issue of small businesses, when we talk about achieving food safety in the region, we cannot get there without this major section of the industry on board. Admittedly it will be very challenging for the legislators and the administration bodies to maintain a balance between all these F&B operators of different levels, but I think once that happens, the whole food safety level of the region will improve greatly.

Micheel: But we’re talking about a region where, just a few years ago, meat was delivered on an open truck and a supplier’s warehouse was just a building with a load of boxes on the floor and rodents running about. The supplier side has seen huge improvement; it’s one of the biggest achievements to date.

Hughes: It’s a question of resources though, because those of us here today are fairly big organisations, with quality assurance teams — but the little guy doesn’t have that; he won’t check his suppliers out.

Wills: But four- and five-star hotels are in a position to put pressure on all the warehouses, and that can change things for everybody.

Micheel: The problem is that following food safety often comes down to budgets. If the initiative is not supported from the top, by whoever’s holding the purse strings, there’s not a lot the little guy can do. And often, smaller businesses just can’t afford the costs.

Impiazzi: That’s where MenuSafe comes in, because it’s a fraction of the price. I did some research into HACCP and it cost thousands of dirhams. I think potentially some areas are overcomplicated, which makes it more expensive, whereas MenuSafe breaks things down so it’s a much simpler system to initiate.

Bautista: We have an internal programme which is not HACCP, because I agree that is over-complicated, and you get some consultant overcharging you to do something which is really common sense.

Our food safety officer focuses on making sure that the ‘owner of the restaurant’, as I call the guy who is there in the outlet every day, can take accountability and follow the simple steps. As long as you follow sensible rules, you’re fine. But I think it does come down to training too, because some people don’t understand basic stuff like cross contamination, or that food can’t be left outside, or that shelf lives must be respected, even though it’s common sense.

Impiazzi: Well a lot of our staff are from areas where they didn’t have the education that we had.

Bautista: That’s why it comes down to training.

Impiazzi: But they also have to understand and believe in any management system you use. You have to sell it to your staff, so they appreciate why it’s necessary.

Micheel: The team has to understand, from the lowest commis upwards, that they are responsible; it’s not that they can pass the buck to the GM or the chef — everyone contributes to making operations safe. You could even call it empowerment.

Qamar: Everyone has a certain role to play regarding food safety — even the guests. Sometimes we have customers who put us in an awkward position; for instance, a guest who orders room service, doesn’t eat it all, then eight hours later asks us to reheat it, then gets upset when we cannot do that. The same thing can happen in the restaurant, when people ask for a doggy bag. So it is very important that the guests are also aware of food safety limitations.

Hughes: I agree one of the biggest challenges can be the culture staff are coming from though. Some people may have been brought up somewhere without running water and are not used to washing their hands, for example. And they come here and don’t understand why certain things are done in a different way.

Micheel: In one way I agree with what you’re saying, but have you ever stood for half an hour in the bathroom of a five-star hotel? Because I think if you actually check how many of these people in designer suits from priveleged backgrounds come out of the toilet and do not wash their hands, you’d be surprised!

Thulasi: Exactly; everyone would agree that hand-washing is necessary after you leave the bathroom, but research shows that only 20% of people actually do it!

However secondary research shows that when you are noticed by someone else, if someone else is in the bathroom, for instance, your tendency to wash your hands increases by 60%.

This is down to an ‘organisations culture’. When you step into an organisation, whether you are trained or not, you will know and pick up what the ‘correct’ thing to do is by observing other people.

That highlights the importance of having a ‘food safety culture’. A team effort really encourages people to do things. It should start with the general manager and go down to the very last employee; that is how a business succeeds.

Bautista: Leading from the top is vital. There has to be positive reinforcement from the highest level, otherwise people don’t buy into it.

Micheel: You’ve got to have everyone on board — and that includes financial people, who might wonder what the return on such investment is.

Thulasi: It’s not about what you spend, but what you’re going to lose if you don’t have a system in place. Some of the biggest names in the world have been destroyed by bad press as a result of food scandals.

But it’s difficult for smaller businesses. That is why we are launching a new programme, Person In Charge, where Dubai Municipality requests that every operation has a person in charge at the outlet who is linked to the license, who will liaise with us and have accountability.

So we’re hoping that programme will improve relations, then we will take it to the next level with management systems.

Micheel: Good — because it cannot be that you only have safe food if you have enough money. This is what it comes down to, at the moment: if you have enough money, you can afford to eat in a good restaurant and your food is safe; if you cannot, tough luck. This cannot happen; everyone has the right to eat safe food.

TAKING PART...

• Loraine Hughes, technical manager, Food Point — Emirates Flight Catering
“We manufacture and supply to hotels and of course Emirates Airlines. I oversee the standards and specifications section, integrated management systems, quality assurance and our on-site laboratory.”

• Bobby Krishna Thulasi, senior food studies and surveys officer, Food Control Department, Dubai Municipality
“Our main job is to make new policies in terms of food safety and hygiene, as well as overseeing inspection programmes and updates regarding international regulations.”

• Uwe Micheel, director of kitchens, Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek
“I’ve worked here for 17 years, so I have seen food safety move from when they cleaned fish at the local market by rubbing them in the sand, right up to where we are today.”

• Kevin Wills, F&B director, JW Marriott Dubai
“Food safety is now twice as good as it was and half as good as it should be. I’ve seen quite a bit of change in a very short time though.”

• Muhammad Qamar, area director of hygiene and sanitation — Dubai and Northern Emirates, Al Bustan Rotana, Dubai
“Today all of our four- and five-star hotels in the region are HACCP-certified. Now we are working for an integrated management system.”

• Russell Impiazzi, executive chef, WAFI Food and Beverage
“We have 17 food-producing kitchens and I agree that progress is being made and we are moving in the right direction.”

• Antonio Bautista, president, Gourmet Gulf
“I think discussions such as this are a great opportunity to air concerns and share food safety information.”