Bulgaria’s food safety agency begins large-scale checks ahead of Festive Season
Bulgaria’s Food Safety Agency is beginning large-scale checks at restaurants, shops and all facilities where food is sold ahead of the Festive Season, agency head Yordan Voinov said on December 11 2012 in an interview with public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television.
He advised against buying food online before a planned register of online retailers was in operation.
The Agriculture and Food Ministry is planning to implement a system that will require online sellers of food and drink to register with the Food Safety Agency. Those delivering food that has been ordered online will have to have special vehicles so that the food is kept at an appropriate temperature. The idea of the registry is a response to a rapid increase in people ordering food online.
Voinov said that there were serious risks involved in ordering food online. Buying clothes and equipment over the internet potentially could mean being cheated of money, but the danger from substandard food was a lot more serious, he said.
He said that regulation of online food suppliers would make such services more expensive.
Voinov said that inspectors had found that poor quality food was most likely to be identified at markets, some restaurants and illicit fast food kiosks in residential areas.
For the Festive Season, the Food Safety Agency had worked out an operational plan in co-operation with police, he said. This included duty shifts. The agency would have “no days off”, he said, adding that inspections would be carried out drawing on the agency’s full capacity.
(Photo: Piotr Omański/sxc.hu)
