Building consumers' trust and confidence in food safety system in Malaysia

On December 10, 1998, a boy was born to Kowalcyks. Unbeknownst to them less than three years later Kevin, the boy will succumb to a strain of E.Coli which contaminated his food - crumbs of uncooked meat in his burger. According to his parents Kevin went from perfectly healthy to being dead in just 12 days and how he contracted the E.Coli O157:H7. The parents and their attorney spent three years to find the answers to these questions.

Kevin's parents continue to promote awareness about foodborne illnesses in the United States and Representative Anna Eschoo Member of the US House of Representatives from California, proposed Kevin's Law in 2005 calling for the USDA or the United States Department of Agriculture to among others:

• Requiring the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify the pathogens that threaten human health (e.g. Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes).
• Requiring the USDA to establish performance standards to reduce the presence of these pathogens in meat and poultry.
• Confirming that the USDA has the authority to enforce its own standards by shutting down plants that continually breach basic health standards.

Meat processors successfully lobbied against the law citing increased production cost and thus cost of food.

Till to date many food safety incidents related to meat contamination by Salmonella and E.Coli points towards the need to revive and implement the proposed Kevin's Law.

On 4 March, 2014 a five year old Muhammad Iqbal Rafie Mohd Ilme, in Malaysia succumbed to Salmonella. Another 68 were admitted for food poisoning. 

The Terengganu State Department had also confirmed that the victims fell ill after consuming four types of food which was sold at the Dataran Syahbandar night market between February 28 and March 1. 

“All the victims had consumed these four types of food which was sold at the Dataran Syahbandar or Padang Hiliran night market which included white fried rice, red fried rice, fried kuey teow and fried noodles,” State Health director Datuk Dr Anwa Sulaiman said.

Just about two weeks before that on February 17, 2014 close to 160 students in Kuala Nerang suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting. 

According to meai reports Kedah state health director Ismail Abu Taat said the food poisoning was caused by Ayam Masak Merah (chicken in spicy tomato sauce) probably contaminated with Salmonella bacteria because of improperly preserved chicken.

In addition to the above, we receive many complaints through the National Consumer Complaints Centre regarding food contamination. There was one on cockroach in kids fast food meal, lizard in wedding cake and mouldy filled buns sold in a hypermarket in Kuala Pilah. The foods above are prepared by the facility (as restaurants or in house bakery) for their customers. 

The National Consumer Complaints Centre or NCCC reported that slightly more than 60% of its over 300 food product complaints are related to safety issue – most of which can be seen by consumers. Foreign material – maggots in chocolates, needle in three in one cereal mix and dead insects in malt drink powder are some of the gory details of the complaints. Issues with safety make up over 16% of the 405 complaints against restaurants such as plastic in chicken burger and cockroach in 'sirap bandung'.

What is happening to our food?

What will it take for restaurant operators and retailers to take food safety seriously?

Should consumer organization call for stricter safety requirements and strong punitive measures – such as increased fine / compound or even jail sentence?

Among the eight universal consumer rights is the right to fulfill basic needs – air, water and food, followed by right to safe products and services. How much of this is safeguarded through laws and their implementation?

Price of prepared or cooked food has always been increasing but level of safety and hygiene is far from improving. Hiring foreign labours to wait on customers or to prepare food in the kitchen maybe counterproductive to food hygiene practices - considering their background, language barrier and lack proper food hygiene training. Has the Ministry of Health and food hygiene training providers considered this human resource situation when developing capacity building activities?

We acknowledge the need for general practitioners or doctors to report food poisoning cases to the Ministry of Health. Discrepancies in the system to collect this data may have grave consequences due to 'under-reporting' the true situation of food safety in Malaysia and its reflection on the food hygiene practices.

We call on the Ministry of Health especially the Food Safety and Quality Division, the local governments and state health departments to work together with the Department of Standard Malaysia to harmonize restaurant grading criteria – which maybe as diverse as the food we savour. During this process, safety and health of workers and consumers must underpin the development of the grading criteria and implementation. 

The MESTI programme by the Ministry of Health (MoH) which outlines the bare necessity for food hygiene practices need to be complemented with strong and aggressive enforcement actions. 

MoH must ensure that the system to report food safety incident is both accessible and responsive. Otherwise, we may end up being like "for everyone customer who lodge a complaints there are 10 who do not".

Consumers must have ZERO TOLERANCE towards poor hygiene and food handling practices in restaurants, catering services and among street food vendors. 

Local government laws need to be amended to ensure that operating licenses are permanently revoked for those who result in death or even hospitalisation of their customers who consume food they sold or prepared. Vendors or food handlers (restaurant owners) MUST never be allowed to run food business if the food they sell result in the death of their customer!!!

With increasing food import bill and a volatile nature of food security we believe consumers should seize their rights to safe and secure food supply by increasing their voice of their dissatisfaction with the quality of food sold to them. 

They need to be critical, socially and environmentally responsible. This entails being responsible in the sound management of food waste and curb food wastage. Food producers and food manufacturers also need to address wastage and waste. Otherwise with approximately nine billion people inhabiting the planet in 2050, 'Hunger Game' becomes part of life on earth!