People’s health is being put at risk on a daily basis by rogue traders in Bahrain who ignore basic hygiene rules, according to a top food retail representative.

A ban on street sales of all fresh produce has now been proposed by Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) food and agriculture sector committee vice-chairman Abdulla Baqer, said a report tin the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

He put forward the idea yesterday during the first weekly majlis hosted by the Capital Trustees Board at its headquarters in Bilad Al Qadeem.

“I would like to put forward a suggestion to stop allowing all foodstuff to be sold on the street,” Baqer said.

“This poses a threat to public safety in terms of both consumption and contamination.

“We spent a lot of time trying to implement the safest ways of selling produce, poultry, meat and fish, but this (street sales) circumvents it.

“We once spent six months exploring the best ways to store and sell cucumbers safely and attended food safety conferences abroad, but when we came back we found people selling cucumbers on the street next to sewage plants.

“The real issue, though, are those who sell fish on the street.

“The smell is a serious issue for these neighbourhoods, as well as verifying how they’re storing these fish.

“A lot of the time fish and prawns are kept in water, but after they are sold the salesmen will just throw the water in the street.

“First, fish should not be stored in water when they’re being sold.

“The proper method is to store it under ice flakes made from salt water and to include drainage.

“Storing them in water is potentially dangerous.

“Second, when this water is just thrown in the street, it causes a terrible smell which remains for a long period of time.

“It also contaminates the area.

“When people buy fish from these sellers, they don’t even know how fresh the fish is or when it’s been caught or bought – unlike if you buy it from the fish market.”

Capital Trustees chairman Mohammed Al Khozaee agreed that action was needed, but said it was not within the Trustees’ jurisdiction.

“We want to enforce a law,” he said.

“But we are not the legislative branch or the implementation (body).

“There are also a lot of Bahrainis who sell products this way, so if we suddenly begin to stop them there would be a huge uproar.

“We need to look into it more and find viable solutions.” - TradeArabia News Service