As schools are now open marking the beginning of a new academic year, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority has started inspection campaigns on facilities that supply food to school canteens across the Abu Dhabi emirate.

The campaigns carried out by the Hospitals & Educational Institutions Control Unit aim at ensuring that only safe and healthy food is supplied to school students.

The inspectors who were deployed in 6 different teams checked if the facilities were following the rules stipulated in the School Canteens Guidelines issued by ADFCA earlier.

The inspections which were carried out in the presence of media covered 22 facilities and ended up with serving warning to 11 facilities for shortcomings in following rules.

According to ADFCA near about 8 kg of sub-standard products were seized during the inspection and were consequently ordered to be destroyed.

During the visits, officials inspected the overall infrastructure, machinery and equipment, food handling practices, temperature levels, staff hygiene, and other procedures concerning with safety of the produced food.

The inspectors closely watched the procedures starting right from mixing and preparing of the flour and to the point of packaging and getting ready for transportation.

Being the authorized body to carry out control activities on food handled across the emirate, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority has been always keen to inspect school canteens and food supply facilities, especially in the beginning of each academic term, to guarantee safe food for younger generation.

It is noted that, the stringent control mechanism adopted by the authority has contributed substantially in transforming the emirate to a known place for high levels of food safety.