Check and balance: Punjab Food Authority’s competitive quality assurance mechanism on the rocks

It was supposed to be launched in January.

LAHORE: Punjab Food Authority’s plan to introduce a competition-based quality assurance mechanism for food outlets in the city has, for all intents and purposes, been shelved. 

It was built around 54 measures of hygiene and quality of food on which food outlets would be rated out of 100. Outlets that scored below 50 would be shut down. The score would be displayed outside cafes and food outlets and serve as a motive for restaurants to improve their services and get a higher score.

PFA Spokesperson Fareeha Anwer said that the project had been delayed but not shelved. “Some of the owners and managers had raised issues on the mechanism…we have been trying to deal with that.” She said the authority was planning on calling a meeting of all stakeholders to finalise a plan but could not give a date or timeframe for the meeting.

The pilot project was to be launched in January at food outlets on MM Alam Road and Liberty Market. “It has still not been finalised…and has most probably been shelved,” a PFA official said.

He said that mechanism covered the basics – quality of food, infrastructure, hygiene and human resource involved in handling and serving the food. The PFA had planned to rate all hotels, restaurants, cafes and foreign food franchises in the city on a scale of 100. He said publicising the rating would allow for strict checks and serve as a self-correcting mechanism for food outlets.

The authority had used international standards of hygiene to score restaurants on. Health of employees and cleanliness were given the most weight – they would be marked out of seven. The indicators were placed in six categories: food traceability, kitchen infrastructure, kitchen cleanliness, human resource, workers’ washrooms and authority vigilance.

Food traceability covered whether the outlet had a permit to sell consumables, the delivery date, quantity, records of materials delivered and used, expiry date, etc. The kitchen infrastructure category looked at ventilation, lighting, cabinets, the floor, external environment, kitchen utensils and storage. Kitchen cleanliness included use of bins, chillers and freezers, dish washing facilities and fumigation. Human resource hygiene included the use of gloves by people preparing the food, their clothing, caps and general health. The workers’ washroom category included the condition and availability of soaps among other sanitary measures. The authority’s vigilance looked at the number of notices received, visits paid, fines imposed and responses to warnings.

Each category had fixed marks, the official said.

The management of food outlets assessed would be required to display the ratings at the entrance and the exit of restaurants on a notice board to inform customers about the quality of food and service they offered, the official said.

The idea was to encourage a competitive environment among restaurant managements and give customers the opportunity to pick restaurants according to their preferences, the official said.

In December last year, the authority held several seminars and training sessions for food outlet owners and managers to apprise them about the new mechanism. There was a demonstration at an outlet at Hussain Chowk. The authority invited suggestions and proposals from owners and managers which were then incorporated into the mechanism to make it more enforceable, the official said. They had even decided to award prizes to restaurants that scored the most, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2015.