Practical food inspection trainings were conducted in 13 districts of Diyarbakır

The Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality has established a Food Inspection Coordination to ensure that citizens have access to healthy and clean food. Following theoretical training, the coordination inspected 300 businesses in 13 rural districts and organized on-the-job training.

According to a statement from the municipality, the Food Unit of the Health Affairs Department and district municipalities have completed their theoretical training on food inspection and are continuing inspections initiated in rural districts. Teams that inspected 300 businesses in 13 rural districts demonstrated practically how inspections should be conducted in the field to the units in the districts.

Abdulvahap Saçaklıdır, the Head of the Health Department, emphasized that access to safe food is one of the most fundamental rights of citizens.

Saçaklı stated that the Food Inspection Coordination is conducting efforts in this context, saying, “We have established food coordination teams with our food unit for our citizens to access healthy food in 4 centers and 13 rural districts. The aim of our food coordination teams is to ensure that our citizens have access to healthy food and to prevent expired food. We first held meetings for educational purposes. After the training, our experienced colleagues went to our 13 rural districts for educational purposes and provided practical training.”

Saçaklı reminded that this work is a first, stating, “On-the-job training inspections were conducted in our 13 districts. In the first phase, 300 shops were visited. We plan to increase this number.”

Saçaklı noted that they issued serious warnings to tradespeople, continuing his remarks as follows: “We have serious warnings regarding hygiene for the tradespeople we visit. We want them to be sensitive about this issue. Because if there is no hygienic environment, there will be no healthy food.”

In the last 4 months, the teams inspected over 4,000 businesses citywide and issued necessary warnings, aiming to inspect 8,000 businesses by the end of the year to minimize deficiencies in food safety and hygiene throughout the city and create general awareness.