Dubai: Besides competing with special offers and discounts during Ramadan, hypermarkets in Dubai are also participating in a contest to raise food safety awareness among customers, officials said on Monday.

Dubai Municipality this week launched the ‘Best Awareness Hypermarket Awards’ to promote healthy and safe buying habits as food consumption and shopping increase during the month, said Noura Al Shamsi, head of the Food Permits and Applied Nutrition section at the municipality’s Food Safety Department told Gulf News. “There are a lot of iftars and a lot of offers as well... people buy food in bulk during Ramadan.”

“So, it is good to know what to buy, how to buy and how to handle food safely so that people don’t end up suffering from cross contamination and other food safety concerns,” Al Shamsi added.

Shugufta M. Zubair, Food Awareness Officer at the department, said hypermarkets are the prime location for shoppers to buy food products during Ramadan.

“We thought of collaborating with hypermarkets to reach out to the residents. Since this is a contest for the awards, most hypermarket chains have come up with their own awareness initiatives. We urge people to visit these hypermarkets to learn from these food safety tips,” she said.

At the LuLu Hypermarket in Al Ghusais on Monday, the municipality officials and customers were greeted by the municipality’s ‘Mr. Safe’ mascot, which handed over food safety flyers.

Suraj Parakkat, hygiene and food safety manager at Lulu said the chain is disseminating food safety messages to customers through shopping bills, cut-outs and giant screens. “We are also organising painting competitions for children on safe shopping,” he said.

The contest will run till July 3 and the awards will be based on the overall performance of the hypermarkets which will be judged by a special panel of judges.

Activities

Hyper Panda to distribute 400,000 food safety leaflets.

Geant hypermarket will host a kitchen tour for customers. It will teach customers to check temperature of food items.

Union Co-op will host talks by health and food safety inspectors.

Hypermarkets will also display food safety messages.

How to buy food correctly

1. Buy chilled and frozen foods at the end of your shopping. Take them home and put them in the fridge or freezer as soon as you can. Buy hot foods at the end of your shopping too and consume them as soon as possible. This will keep the food safe and wholesome.

2. Bacteria can grow faster in all ready-to-eat foods, milk, raw meat, poultry and fish that are kept at room temperature. Such items should be purchased at the end of your shopping.

Buy cans and jars that look physically fit. Avoid foods in torn packages and check that safety seals are intact. Also, avoid canned foods that are dented, bulged or rusty and those, which have loose lid.

3. Always read labels properly. Pre-packed foods have expiry date, list of ingredients and handling instructions printed on the labels.

4. Whenever carrying food outside (whether shopping, for barbecues or picnics) avoid putting it in warm places, e.g. inside the car or under the sun. It’s best to use a cool box for perishable foods.

5. Do not buy hot foods if they are sold less than 60 degrees Celsius. Food from take-away outlets should be eaten within two hours.

6. Keep raw meat/poultry or ready-to-eat food or food that can be eaten raw in different shopping bags to prevent the juices of the raw food from cross-contaminating the ready-to-eat food/food to be eaten raw.

7. Do not store food and chemicals (sanitizers, disinfectants, soaps etc) together.

8. Slime formation, bad odor, and color change (such as grey or brown) and sticky texture or very dry meat surface are indicators of quality deterioration. Do not buy meat if you notice any of these indicators.

9. When buying eggs, make sure to check that none of them are cracked.