Mr Emmanuel Agyarko, Chief Executive Officer of Food and Drugs Board (FDB) said on Wednesday the Board would strictly enforce laws governing good cold storage practices in the country. “We will go very strictly according to the law to safeguard the consumer’s health,” Mr Agyarko warned. He was addressing the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop on good cold storage practices in Tema. He stated that cold storage facilities were key components of the food delivery chain. The workshop was attended by supervisors and operational staff of 28 cold store operators in and around Tema Metropolis. He noted that before frozen animal, poultry and fish products got to the consumer, the cold chain must be properly maintained and the products appropriately handled to ensure their safety and quality. Mr Agyarko observed that inadequate storage and poor hygiene of facilities were main contributors to food borne diseases in the country. He said to address this problem the Board signed a memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to empower his outfit to ensure that cold storage facilities had the capacity to maintain the cold chain to guarantee food safety. In addition, the Board has the mandate to withdraw licenses of cold store facilities that operate without a backup power generator as part of measures to ensure that operators the required temperatures were retained, even during power fluctuations. Mr John Odame-Darkwa, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the FDB in charge of Food, said the Board would continue to ensure that meat and fish reach the consumer in a form that would promote well-being. Dr Mohammed Alfa, Head of the Animal Products Biosafety Department of the FDB said only a few of cold stores inspected observed good cold storage practices including good packaging, maintaining the required freezing temperature and keeping a clean environment. He said some of the infractions detected during the inspection were poor arrangement of products and repacking of frozen products under unhygienic conditions without the FDB’s approval. Other bad practices were poor maintenance of packaging integrity which exposed the products to germs and use of inappropriate means of transporting frozen product. Source: GNA