Under the patronage of the Ministry of Economy and Trade, the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the Lebanese German University – LGU organized a conference and workshop on Food Safety entitled “Road map for collaboration between universities and the public sector to find innovative solutions to the problems affecting the meat and poultry sectors in Lebanon”. The event, which was held on Tuesday 21st April 2015 at LGU campus in Sahel Alma, hosted figures from various ministries, experts in food safety from various public and private institutions, dieticians, unions, representatives of the meat and poultry industries, restaurants, hotels, and municipalities as well as a large number of professors and students from different universities.

The conference was opened with a welcome word by LGU President, Dr. Faouzi Adaimi, followed by a speech delivered by Dr. Paul Makhlouf, Dean of the Faculty of Public Health, who thanked Minister Alain Hakim represented by Mr. Razzi Al-Hajj, an expert on economy at the Ministry of Economy and Trade, as well as the different universities for their presence. He pointed out to the various popular misconceptions concerning the washing and storing of meat and poultry and reminded the audience that the problem of food poisoning is not new, recalling the dioxin pandemic in 1999, bird flu in 2003, the substitution of beef with pork in China in 2011, and the horsemeat scandal in 2013. He wished the participants plenty of success in reaching recommendations that would ease collaboration between the private and public sectors in order to monitor the safety of food and establish scientific labs that would deal with the issue.

Then Mr. Razzi Al-Hajj, representing the Minister of Economy and Trade, spoke about the success achieved by LGU students as they managed to rank first in an inter-universities competition on “Innovation on Food Control” that was organized in 2014 and involved over 12 universities. In fact, with the assistance of Mrs. Diana Boulos, Head of the Nutrition Department, and Mr. Elie Bteich, LGU students were able to create a new system of traceability for meat. Mr. Al-Hajj affirmed that the Ministry of Economy and Trade was the first to seek cooperation with the academic sector in order to find solutions to the various difficulties confronting the Lebanese economy. He explained that the Ministry had called for volunteers among university students to support consumer protection teams in their work and had provided them with various training sessions to accomplish their tasks. He added that such collaboration should not be limited to the organization of conferences but that all theories should be turned into practical measures that would make consumer products easier to control. He concluded that the Ministry had organized a workshop in order to elaborate a national strategy regarding food safety and had made the necessary effort to enhance the tasks of the National Council for Consumer Protection. It had also launched a strategy to protect the consumer for 2015 and 2016 which is aimed at raising awareness among consumers and traders, enhancing food control tasks, and coming up with new legislations and necessary studies to protect the consumer. He finally reminded the audience that the “Road Map” would boost the Ministry`s job with respect to consumer protection and that it should not be restricted to finding solutions to problems relating to meat and poultry but should expand its activities to more comprehensive means of collaboration that would favor consumer protection.

The conference was concluded with a workshop that issued the following recommendations that will subsequently be conveyed to relevant ministries and bodies:

  • Organizing a national day to incite consumers to use the various means of consumer complaints;
  • Organizing inter-universities competitions to come up with innovative consumer awareness campaigns;
  • Carrying out research to evaluate the risks that consumers are running when food safety measures are not abided by;
  • Providing subsidies to the poultry and meat companies by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce so that they adopt new traceability systems;
  • Backing universities in carrying out research and implementing studies;
  • Putting the laboratories of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tripoli and North Lebanon at the disposal of all those carrying out research relating to food safety;
  • Facilitating the access of university research teams to some poultry companies in order to carry out research on food safety;
  • Establishing a mixed research unit made up of universities and various public institutions to carry out projects when needed;
  • Establishing cooperation among ministries, unifying criteria, proposing a data base concerning research findings;
  • Monitoring labels on local, imported, fresh, and frozen poultry by the Ministry of Economy and Trade;
  • Stressing the need to have a vet permanently present at meat industries or slaughterhouses and insisting upon the Ministry of Agriculture to have him follow regular training sessions;
  • Amending the Lebanese fines relating to food security to make them more punitive and prohibitive;
  • Encouraging twinning programs with foreign countries with the aid of universities through the studies they carry out and coordinating with the Ministry of Agriculture regarding these programs;
  • Stressing the role of municipalities and their unions and their collaboration with the private sector (under the supervision of the public sector through regular inspection campaigns) in establishing slaughterhouses that conform to international standards;
  • Inviting universities to participate in committees held to establish the necessary standards and make ministries as well as training companies, labs, unions, international organizations, importers, and the Chamber of Commerce contribute to such meetings;
  • Enhancing the role of the Chamber of Commerce in monitoring food;
  • Selling poultry as it has been originally packed and never unpack and repack it before it is sold to the end consumer;
  • Stressing the role of media in raising awareness among consumers regarding food safety (such as explaining safety criteria when buying poultry) and making sure the person responsible of the awareness campaigns in the media is one with a large scientific expertise in food safety.