266 coffee shops, 60 restaurants in cleanliness contest
BINTULU: A total of 266 coffee shops and 60 restaurants here will be competing in this year’s cleanliness competition which had been organised by the Rotary Club of Bintulu Central since 1997.
Bintulu Municipal Service (Perbinda) acting senior manager (environmental health) Mohamed Ansari Mohd Syed Ahmad said evaluation of the participating premises will be carried out starting next month.
He said this at the launch of the competition and presentation of the challenge trophies to Rotary Club of Bintulu Central represented by its director of community service Bong Fatt Ming at Perbinda office here yesterday.
He added the competition is held to ensure consumers not only get good quality food and drinks at the premises but also act as an encouragement for operators to always emphasise hygiene inside and outside their premises.
“This in turn can attract both local and international tourists to patronise their premises,” he added.
Ansari said food industry is one of the important sectors that can further promote Bintulu as a tourist destination and bring in more visitors to the town.
He thus urged chairmen of the coffee shops and restaurants associations to inform their respective members who are the operators of eateries to work with Perbinda and the Rotary club to achieve the objective.
He was also happy to note that other councils have seen Bintulu as the pioneer of this competition and organised their own contests.
“The Rotary club has taken the lead in this with help from Bintulu Development Authority ( BDA), Bintulu Health Office and has become a model for others to follow in maintaining cleanliness,” he added.
The coffee shops and restaurants here are graded from A to D based on their scores in five areas namely toilet facilities and cleanliness, food and drinks preparation area, serving area, personal hygiene and licensing and health requirements.
Meanwhile, Bong thanked BDA and Bintulu Health Office for their support towards the initiative all these years.
“It is a small effort but the impact to the Bintulu people in general is huge and I am proud that since we started this contest in 1997, we have not received any complaints on food poisoning involving our registered premises and it shows that the food standard has been improving,” he said.
Food technology officer Sylvester William Silan from Bintulu Health Office meanwhile said 11 food premises and four factories have been ordered to close for violating hygiene standards as of November this year with a total 135 notices worth RM29,905 issued.