Food inspectors are mainly concerned with the cleanliness rather than the quality of food. They concentrate on the cleanliness of a restaurant and its environment, and grade the restaurant’s food according to preset criteria. However, I believe that food inspection should not only focus on cleanliness, but should also make sure that the food being produced for the consumer is healthy and fresh. There should be an in-house regulator to make sure consumers are being served fresh food.

In Saudi Arabia, most franchised restaurants start out on the right track, but eventually begin to lower their standards in terms of the quality of their food.

On the other hand, local restaurants serve fresher food than food served in well-known restaurants. In some franchised restaurants, the food is disappointing even soon after the restaurant opens for the day. Salads at times are made a couple of hours prior to the time a customer asks for them. This happened to a friend of mine who went out for dinner at a café in a prominent part of the city. She was served a salad that looked as though someone had beat the life out of it.

When she asked the waiter if it was fresh, his reply was that it was. Yet when she asked when it was made, he said it was made sometime that morning!

Food inspectors in our country may close a restaurant for a couple of days for violating municipal rules and regulations, but the restaurant simply re-opens and violates the same rules again. A situation like this occurred in a well-known restaurant a couple of months ago, when food inspectors closed the restaurant for a short time.

Yet, soon after it reopened, it was caught serving spoiled meat.

Another point I would like to make is that if a restaurant does not meet the requirements of the food inspection, it should be shut down, and not just for a day or two or a week or two. It should be made known to the public that this particular restaurant failed certain areas of the inspection. It should be exposed in the media, otherwise no changes will ever be made. There should also be random visits from food inspectors, and evaluation forms available for consumers to fill out. After all, food inspection is done for the well-being of consumers, so why not make them an integral part of the process?

It is about time that food inspection is done out in the open, instead of the names of restaurants which have failed to meet acceptable standards being hidden from the public. Inspection should be carried out in the interests of the public, not of the owners of restaurants.

Moreover, it should focus on the freshness of the food, and not just the cleanliness of the environment in which it is cooked. Health, cleanliness, freshness, and quality should be the four main criteria for inspecting any restaurant.

It is not just food. It concerns the health and well-being of people.— Esraa Al-Ghamdi is a Saudi poet. She can be reached at esraa.alghamdi@gmail.com