The improvement on current concerns on food safety of hawker foods in Malaysia is needed in order to improve public health and development on the tourist sector since hawker food can cause significant risk to consumer mostly due to microbial contamination.
3.1 3 Basic steps in handling the issue
There are several basic ways to improve the current issue on food safety of hawker food in Malaysia based on the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) associated with World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) which are educating the hawkers food about food safety, adapt …show more content…
WHO has developed the Ten Golden Rules for Safer Food Preparation in the early of 1990s but replaced by the Five Keys of Safer Food on 2001 as a global health message which explain the basic principles to ensure safe food handling practices and inhibit foodborne diseases (Gaungoo & Jeewon , 2013). The hawker foods enable to implement a good hygiene practice by adapting the Five Keys of Safer Food in their daily life. The Five Keys of Safer Food comprises of five key which are keep clean, raw and cooked food should be separated, cook thoroughly, keep food at safe temperature and use safe water and raw material ((WHO), 2006). Each of these messages has its own explanation and reason why it’s should be implemented to ensure food …show more content…
Department of hawker and petty trades (DHPT) are establish on 1986 to regulate and control the food hawker. The main objectives of DHPT include the development, modernization and management of the food hawker especially in Kuala Lumpur. DHPT shown that the licensed food hawker has increased over the years form 1990 until today as the unlicensed also increasing. Training programmes is provided and organized regularly for licensed food hawker as government has provided funds for them. This training programme teaches the licensed food hawker about the health and hygiene, food safety, business skill, accounts and many more. This training programme is essential and effective in controlling the current concern on food safety of hawker foods in Malaysia. However, unlicensed hawker food do not get any of this advantage and might cause issue on food safety as they do not have enough knowledge and training regarding food safety, food hygiene and