Two food safety lectures are going to be held at the SFDA headquarter. The first one is entitled "Components of Plant Production Affecting the Quality and Safety of Food and Feed" while the second one will be on "Evaluation of Pesticide Residues - Estimation of maximum residue limits MRL". The two lectures will be presented by Dr. Ambrus Árpád, DDG Hungarian Food Safety  Office.

          Food Sector participation in the Hygienic Control of Food
                     in the Holy Places   during the Hajj Season

Officials in the EU and New Zealand have agreed on a common strategy for maintaining meat and dairy exports in the event of a serious animal disease outbreak.

The deal, now awaiting final endorsement by the European Commission, sets down several safeguards and practices to be followed by New Zealand after an outbreak is discovered.

The Indonesian government is currently reviewing its laws on artificial sweeteners and will consider banning them from food if expert evidence suggests they present health risks, according to a report.

"We may remove artificial sweeteners, such as Aspartame Saccharin and Cyclamate, from the Health Ministry's decree ... about allowable food additives," Husniah R.T. Akib, head of the country's food and drug authority (BPOM) told the Jakarta Post.

The III Hispano-French Conference on micro and nanotechnologies was held recently in Donostia-San Sebastian, one of the participants being AZTI- Tecnalia which presented part of its research carried out within the framework of the European GOODFOOD - Food Safety and Quality Monitoring with Microsystems programme.

In these days, Jeddah municipality conducts an extensive research to identify the requirements for launching a microbiological and chemical laboratory for food products. "This SR 40 million project has been approved by His Excellency Secretary Eng. Adil Faqhih. It is going to be founded in the municipality" reported Dr. Mohammed Abduasalam, Secretary Advisor. He maintained that the lab will be concerned with examining and analyzing food produce such as beverages, sodas, legumes, meat, and fish, crustaceans, eggs and all kinds of canned foods.

Sponsored by Public Health Department in Dubai Municipality, the 2nd food safety conference entitled" Food Safety & Risk Analysis" takes place during 20-22/2/2007 at Abu Dhabi Conference and Exhibition Hall. Among the participants are speakers from different international organizations, like WHO, CODEX, and other academic and scientific food agencies, food processing companies as well as many other bodies concerned with food safety.

More details:

The federal food safety inspection unit has approved an additional batch of additives, antimicrobals and agents for use as processing aids directly on meat and poultry products.

The updated list adds more substances that can be used during meat and poultry processing operations, giving more options in the food safety arsenal available to processors. The new approvals were made since the list was last updated on 10 May 2006.

Riyadh, an annual report from the Counter-Adulteration General Administration (CAGA) at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry revealed that a considerable amount of foods invalid for human consumption has been discarded. This came after a (CAGA) inspection tour which covered 100831 facilities specializing in manufacturing, processing and retailing foods and consumable goods.

Consequently, 197 cases were remitted to the Adulteration Settlement Committee to issue violation penalties while 92 cases were remitted to the Investigation and Allegation Committee.