Track food safety from farm to fork in Dubai with this app

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Track food safety from farm to fork in Dubai with this app

Dubai - Dubai Municipality launches Food Watch app

by

Sherouk Zakaria

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Published: Mon 20 Nov 2017, 12:17 PM

Last updated: Mon 20 Nov 2017, 1:52 PM

 Soon, residents will be able to track where their food comes from and get a detailed background of food items and recipes served at restaurants.
The Dubai Municipality (DM) on Sunday launched the 'Food Watch' app during the 11th Food Safety Conference, to enable residents with diabetes, hypertension, food allergies and other health conditions to monitor if they were being served with the right kind of food at their chosen outlets.
The new smart system - consisting of the app and website - will allow the municipality to trace the food's journey from "farm to fork" and monitor over 20,000 food establishments to achieve high levels of safety in the run up to Expo 2020.In the next three years, a digital integrated system will cover all food establishments and hotels around Dubai to ensure food safety for residents, while allowing the municipality to monitor companies and suppliers. It will also help food companies to self-monitor their food hygiene and safety.
Although the civic body is currently creating the database of all food establishments and gathering information about their menus, officials say it will go live for consumers in the next six to nine months.
Hussain Lootah, director-general of DM, said the new hi-tech app will allow residents with specific allergies or health conditions to locate restaurants that serve the appropriate food and get full information on the recipes and food items at that outlet. "Let's say a consumer wants organic food or seafood. He/she enters their preferred item on the app, which will show them the restaurants that serve it, along with the restaurant's ranking, the food item's calories, suppliers that the outlet gets the food from, its nutritional claims, and so on," Lootah told Khaleej Times.

"The app helps the civic body keep track of the food and connect with food outlets and hotels across the city to provide residents with healthy and safe food. We want to make sure there's food for everyone under healthy conditions."
Lootah said using technology and smart systems will help address the challenges food safety experts face at international levels. "The most important of these challenges is the increase in shipments of imported food, which in 2016 amounted to more than 350,000 food consignments and more than 2 million food categories imported from over 180 countries. The DM has registered more than 600,000 food categories through its electronic system," said Lootah.
"Smart solutions will help us develop integrated food safety systems during the Expo 2020."
Digitising the food monitoring system
With Dubai getting over 70 per cent of food imported to the UAE, Food Watch will help the municipality track the items from its import into the country until its delivery to consumers. It is meant to digitise the approval process and connect the municipality to restaurants, without the need for paperwork.
Noura Abdulla Al Shamsi, head of food permits and applied nutrition section at the DM, said over 100 field inspectors are currently on the ground to gather information on restaurants and their menus and register them on the new smart system. High-risk food and perishables will be covered as a start, moving down to medium, then low-risk food.
The future phase will see the use of blockchain technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) for accurate and fast monitoring of food. "Using IoT (Internet of Things), we will be able to track the temperature control and humidity of shipments delivered either by sea or air, how many times the container was opened, and so on. So if a shipment enters the country with low temperature control, we will automatically reject it as it may pose a risk," said Al Shamsi."Everything will be tracked through the system, so we can take action and share Big Data. Technology helps us predict to prevent and protect," she added.
The system will prompt the DM to coordinate with other governments in the process. Later, the smart platform will be integrated with the UAE Food Bank, to monitor items of surplus food marked for donation.
Role of technology in reducing food poisoning
Meanwhile, Basheer Hassan Yousuf, Food Safety Specialist in Dubai Municipality, said the app will help track food poisoning outbreaks as it tracks food items, helping the civic body "predict, protect and prevent."
"If a food poisoning case happened, it will be easier to track the food item that caused it because everything is already registered in the system. Blockchain technology and modern methods input in the program gives the prediction of what might happen," said Yousuf.
Through the smart system, food establishments will also be able to get municipality's approval on their health claim before adding the Healthy Food Logo on each item in the menu.
Earlier, the municipality launched the logo that certifies that a meal in a specific restaurant follows health requirements of offering a balanced diet, paying special focus to limited calories and limited use of salt and saturated fats that contribute to the high levels of hypertension and heart disease in UAE. 
The civic body will be able to track the health claim and give food establishments approval accordingly without having to undergo paperwork.
sherouk@khaleejtimes.com
 


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