For maintaining excellent standards:

Food establishments get CMC awards

Rafik JALALDEEN

Ninety nine food establishments in the city of Colombo were given special awards by the Colombo Municipal Council Public Health Department for maintaining excellent standards in food quality and hygiene.

The City Food Safety Awards Ceremony was held at the Colombo Hilton yesterday. Around 99 food establishments in the city received awards under the Category A (Excellent) and B (Good). Of them 44 received A grade and 55 have categorized B grade.

CMC Chief Health Medical Officer Dr. Pradeep Kariyawasam said nearly 450 food establishments including hotels, restaurants, bakeries, fast food outlets etc entered to the City Food Safety Award competition. "These food establishments were inspected by the CMC officials. They also checked the standard of microbiology and quality of food and water supply as well as the standard of hygiene and food lenders at these food establishments", he added.

Dr. Kariyawasam told the Daily News that the CMC regularly conducts checks on food establishments in the city to ensure food hygiene and safety. The standard of hygiene has greatly improved comparing the last 10 years.

He noted that the CMC has improved its laboratory to check the standards of food hygiene. Besides, two more additional analysts have been recruited to the CMC laboratory to check the food and water.