By FAZEENA SALEEM & MOHAMMED OSMAN
Huge quantities of stale and expired food items are detected and destroyed by municipal authorities in Qatar almost on a daily basis, with strict regulations in place to prevent sale of food unfit for human consumption.
Shops selling expired food can face hefty fines, temporary or permanent closure and legal action depending on the seriousness of the offence.
Late last year, the municipal authorities closed down a shopping facility in Al Ghuwairiya for a month for selling expired food items.
During the same period, the food section of a commercial centre was closed for its failure to store food items properly and a food store owned by a private company was shut down for similar reasons.
Inspectors from the seven municipalities routinely conduct raids at malls, hypermarkets, groceries, restaurants, food stores and shops selling fish, fruit and vegetables to detect violations of the law.
Following one such raid, inspectors from Al Khor and Al Dakhira municipalities destroyed a total of 1,380kg of foodstuff and 980kg of fish that were unfit for human consumption.
In a similar incident, more than 100,000 stale eggs (3,600 crates) were seized and destroyed by inspectors of Doha Municipality who, in an earlier crackdown, had destroyed an incredible 336,000 tonnes of expired or stale food items.
Besides failure on the part of traders to comply with expiry dates, there have been organised attempts to change expiry dates of several consumer products, including foodstuff.
Nine persons were arrested in Doha last month on charges of tampering with expiry date stickers. Police recovered large quantities of expired food and other items and seized several stamps and other equipment used to print new expiry date stickers.
To prevent such manipulation, the Joint Food Monitoring Committee at the Supreme Council of Health recently made it mandatory for traders and importers to print the expiry date of food products directly on the packets instead of on stickers.
As per the rules, the production and expiry date must be engraved, embossed, printed or stamped directly onto the original label or primary packaging at the time of production using indelible ink.
Multiple production and expiry dates on the label are not acceptable. The month may be printed in numbers or letters.
Production and expiry dates in English alone are acceptable, but it is preferable to have the dates in both English and Arabic languages for the Qatari market.
Production and expiry dates are not required for fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh bakery items. Production dates alone are sufficient for products deemed to have a long shelf life, such as salt, white sugar, spices and condiments, tea, rice and dried pulses.
There are numerous cases of consumers inadvertently buying or using expired or stale food.
“Once I bought a can of (evaporated) milk from a supermarket on Al Nasser street. I made soup with the milk. It was too late when I found out that it was expired, and the taste was really bad. It was also too late to lodge a complaint,” said a Filipina working mother.
“My son ate almost half of it, and then he experienced a stomach disorder. Since then I am very careful with dates written on top of the cans,” she added.
An Indian professional living with her family in Qatar for more than 10 years said, “Once we bought coffee from a popular supermarket in Doha. It was close to the expiry date and the coffee was all dried up and it went to waste. We complained, but the supermarket didn’t replace it.”
A Sri Lankan working woman said she had many times experienced food going bad before the expiry date.
“I always face problems with cheese spreads and different kinds of sauce. Even before of the expiry date, I see fungus many times. I have stopped buying them now.”
She added, “Once I bought fresh fish from a hypermarket which regularly offers promotions. I kept it in the refrigerator and it was spoilt the next day.”
She said she was surprised to see fungal growth even on dry fish.
“Eggs are another big problem. They carry an expiry date, but eggs get spoilt very fast. I have noticed that eggs in foam crates get spoilt easily compared to the ones packed in plastic,” she added.
Traders maintain that poor storage and improper handling, rather than the expiry date, are to be blamed for food going stale.
“The expiry date for most food items in Qatar is shorter compared to what is followed in other countries. It is illogical to think that food items with a long shelf life would get spoilt if there is a difference of one or two days. On the other hand, they can get spoilt even before the expiry date due to improper handling,” said Mohammed Altaf, regional director of Lulu Hypermarket Group.
He said some food products were not coming to the Qatari market because expiry dates here were different from those in most other countries, including some GCC states.
“Several experts have underlined the need for reviewing the rules that were framed when advanced packaging and storing facilities were not available internationally,” he said.
He said shopping centres worldwide followed a “first in, first out” policy to ensure that expired food was not stocked or sold.
First in, first out implies displaying old stock more prominently on the shelves. When new stock arrives, the old stock is placed in the front on the shelves for better visibility.
“As per the rules, we can keep a food item on the shelves until the expiry date, but we remove them a few weeks ahead of the expiry date as a precaution,” said Altaf.
In his view, expired stocks are found in some shops mainly because they may not be doing rigorous monitoring.
“We have specially trained staff to check the validity of every food item. We use a special hand-held electronic device for this purpose. We also conduct physical inspections to make sure nothing goes wrong,” he added.
Food can get spoilt before the expiry date due to improper handling and storage by the trader or consumer, Altaf said.
“There are people who buy fresh fish or meat and keep it inside their car for several hours in high temperatures. Traders cannot be blamed in such circumstances,” he said.
Many shopping outlets resort to promotions to sell stocks that are close to the expiry date. Customers have different experiences related to this.
“I buy such items in bulk to send them home or while going on vacation. Recently, I bought items like cheese from a well-known supermarket,” said a salesman working in a watch shop.
“All hypermarkets have sales promotions only for items that are close to their expiry date to get rid of the stocks. We actually look forward to such sales. We mostly buy milk products. Some items have one month to expire. We just use them within the given date,” said a working woman.
A member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) has called for more vigilance on the part of the authorities as well as customers to prevent the sale of stale and expired food in the country.
“The primary responsibility lies with the customers. They should always check the expiry date while buying food items and report to the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) if they notice any violation,” said CMC member Mohammed Saleh Al Khayarain.
He said there was a need for more interaction and communication between the CPD and consumers.
“Many people are not even aware of the existence of this department,” he said.
To address this issue, Al Khayarain proposes assigning representatives of the CPD to major shopping centres to receive complaints from customers.
“There are CPD representatives available in some car companies to deal with customers’ complaints. This system should be followed in shopping malls as well,” he said.
THE PENINSULA
