The Chief Executive Officer of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) Dr. Hisham bin Saad Al-Jadhey said that SFDA is implementing a national program for food monitoring and control that includes analyzing more than 10,000 food samples in order to ensure their safety from pollutants. The Authority is also creating databases on the quality and quantity of food consumed by the Saudi society. The CEO of SFDA said in a statement on the occasion of the World Food Safety Day that the Authority is preparing and implementing, in cooperation with its partners in government and private sectors, national programs to monitor various food pollutants in order to ensure the safety of food in Saudi markets and compliance of food with technical regulations and standard specifications. He added that during this year, the national food monitoring and control program is being implemented with the aim of analyzing 10,225 samples of more than 124 food products and detecting 38 pollutants. Dr. Al-Jadhey said that the Authority adopted policies that promote public health and prevent chronic diseases by preventing partially hydrogenated fats in the food industry, reducing sugar and salt in foods, and obliging to display calories on the menus of food establishments. He pointed out that SFDA has carried out 51,756 inspections of food establishments, collected 29,645 samples and performed over 73,000 laboratory analyses.
