Accra, Ghana: John Odame-Darkwa, deputy chief executive of the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) in Ghana pledged that cold storage facilities will soon have to be licensed so they comply with safety standards.
Odame-Darkwa said: “This comes hot on the heels of a review inspection report on compliance by cold storage facilities which revealed that majority of the cold stores in Accra and Tema metropolis were non-compliant and operating under unhygienic conditions, which were very dangerous and could cause health hazards to consumers”.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day training workshop for cold store operators in the Accra, Odame-Darkwa noted that in the next three months operators would be trained and encouraged to put in the appropriate measures or else have their facilities closed down.
Dr Mohammed Alfa, head of the animal products and biosafety department at FDB, said the training workshop would give operators an opportunity to learn about good cold storage practices.
Dr Alfa said most of the cold stores visited either did not have temperature-monitoring devices to keep the products at the appropriate temperature or had devices that did not work.
He said due to the perishable nature of animal products such as poultry, meat and fish, it was imperative that the cold chain integrity was properly maintained to safeguard the products’ quality and safety as they were being transported.
He said the board detected that most of the 150 cold stores visited had poor practices including inadequate and inappropriate transport for animal products.
