Effective national food control systems are essential to ensure the safety of food and to protect consumers. They are also critical in enabling countries to assure the safety and quality of foods entering international trade and to ensure that imported foods conform to national requirements (FAO, 2007). During recent years, GCC countries have moved to update and strengthen their systems and infrastructure for food control. Progressive efforts have been made both at national and regional level to strengthen capacity in food safety and quality. Despite the efforts of capacity building performed within the national food control systems in the Region, countries still have fragmented systems and the situation is far from being adequate as many problems continue to persist. The high import dependence together with new foodborne risks and the emergence of serious transboundary food threats have highlighted the challenges to securing safe and good quality food as well as protecting consumers. An overview and assessment of the food control situation has outlined some of the most important issues and has generated several recommendations providing guidance as to how the food control systems in the region can rise to the challenges identified, stressing the importance of a risk based food chain approach and regional collaboration. A detailed assessment of the food control system in Kuwait has identified organisational needs and gaps and has provided recommendations to help in the . development, implementation and enhancement of food control. Analysing progress in the UAB, where HACCP has been incorporated into their national food control system, has highlighted the importance of HACCP as a food control tool and has emphasized the role of government agencies in driving/encouraging the successful implementation of HACCP-based food control systems. Evaluating the system in Saudi Arabia has revealed the advantages and challenges of reforming and streamlining food control activities with a central authority to lead food safety enforcement. An overview of the current food control systems in each of Bahrain, Oman and Qatar has also been presented, contributing to the overall analysis. With these findings, the performance of each GCC country has been benchmarked against internationally accepted criteria, resulting in a compliance percentage score for each country. Finally, a proposal is made to establish a GCC Central Food Safety Authority to encourage the development of a common and integral GCC food policy; act as a scientific point of reference for the entire region and facilitate harmonisation between the member States. This thesis hence provides guidelines that would assist the competent authorities of GCC national governments and other governments of the world, in the development and improvement of their national food control systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:553019 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Al-Kandari, Dina |
| Publisher | University of Reading |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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