SFDA Stopped Production Lines in 66 Water Factories in the various regions of the Kingdom since control of water factories was assigned to SFDA, 16 months ago.

This action comes after transferring the control of all bottled water plants in all regions of the Kingdom to SFDA since 01/04/1436 AH.

The plan included a comprehensive periodical monitoring program, every three months, to ensure the commitment of these factories to the Gulf Standard Specification No. (GSS 21) related to “health requirements for food factories and their personnel" and verify commitment to the standard specification for bottled drinking water (GSS 1025) .

SFDA inspectors completed over 750 inspection tours during which they observed several violations to the technical requirements of potable water factories. Many of these violations have not largely affected the safety of the product. SFDA followed up the correction of such violations and enforced penalties regulation on those factories. In case where the violations affected the safety of the product, SFDA stopped the production lines in those factories immediately upon capturing such violations and implemented due penalties against them and did not allow resuming production before these violations are corrected. The number of factories where production lines were stopped reached 66 factories since the responsibility of control of potable water and ice factories was transformed to SFDA.

The violations captured by SFDA inspectors ranged between health requirements violations e.g., buildings design, openings on walls and ceilings, no designated access for laborers, poor ventilation and lighting roads and outside yards are not paved and asphalted als0 violations concerning manufacturing and health controls e.g., production lines machines and belts are not maintained, no pest fighting, no periodic maintenance of production lines, some laborers are not qualified and no quality system exists for  the safety of food products.

There are 201 factories of bottled water and ice in the Kingdom , including 58 in Riyadh , 36 in Makkah , 41 in East Region , 5 in Tabuk , 5 in Jizan, 10 in Madinah , 8 in Al-Jouf , 12 in Asir, 15 in Qassim , 6 in Hail, 3 in Baha and 2 in Najran.

All potable water factories, kingdom wide, are subject to a comprehensive periodical monitoring program during which periodical visits are made to these factories where  samples of their products are taken and laboratory analyzes are made to ensure the security and safety of the product for human consumption. In case of violations, these factories shall correct these irregularities and furthermore fines and penalties shall be applied, for example, when it proves that a water factory exceeds the permitted level of Bromate (10 micrograms / liter), SFDA shall apply the mechanism approved by the Council of Ministers telegram No. 4297/mb dated 02/7/1432AH and the penalties specified in the commercial counterfeit regulations issued by the Royal decree No. m/19 dated 23/4/1429AH including publication of a warning about that product on SFDA web site and different media, recall violated products from the market and stop production lines of violating products.

The number of potable water factories whereof their products were warned about on SFDA web site, reached 30 factories. All these factories were permitted to resume production upon ensuring that they have corrected their situation and safety of their procedures to avoid such violations in future.