Riyadh Municipality is preparing a system that will rank restaurants and fast food chains based on the quality of service and food that they serve. The ranking system will be ready by year-end, said Solaiman Al-Buthi, General Manager of the municipality's Environmental Health Department. The municipality, he said, decided to introduce the ranking system after the food hygiene and standard of service at restaurants and fast food chains and some well-known multinational franchises started to deteriorate. The number of food poisoning cases rose during the hot summer season, he said. Based on complaints from many quarters, food inspectors from the Environmental Health Department collected food samples from 80 locations and tested them for quality in the laboratory, he said. “A number of people were hospitalized for food poisoning,” he said. The test results revealed the food served at those food outlets was of inferior quality and not fit for human consumption, he said. “We immediately ordered the closure of all those restaurants, and ordered 15 of them to be closed for one month, which included one large food franchising outlet at Thalateen Street,” Al-Buthi said. He said his department has received several complaints from people about the poor quality of food served and substandard service at food outlets. Some of the complaints are about major food outlets which have violated hygiene rules, he said. Business owners have been asked to give training to waiters and food handlers about personal hygiene and ways to keep kitchens and food storage areas clean, he added. There are around 13,000 food outlets of various types and categories including coffee shops, cafeterias and pizza and fast food franchises, which include Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Indian, and Pakistani outlets among others. The hygiene level among food handlers was also not up to the mark, Al-Buthi said. Food inspectors have discovered poor personal hygiene among chefs, whom, it was found, did not wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. “Such habits will contaminate food items being prepared for cooking,” he said. In several other cases, head cooks and other food handlers were not aware of the temperature required to prevent raw food from rotting, he said. The ranking system will be implemented in different phases. In the first phase, food outlets, such as restaurants, fast food chains, coffee shops, and cafeterias will be covered. The second phase will cover other businesses that directly deal with public health safety, such as laundries and barber shops. “We will award points and those businesses that score a certain number of points will be given stars. Consumers can judge the quality of food outlets based on the stars they receive from the Riyadh Municipality,” he said. The names of food outlets with superior performance will be posted on Riyadh Municipality's website, he added.
