Belgium’s Federal Agency for Food Chain Safety, AFSCA, is demanding that non-profits serving food to people in need stamp every portion with the date, the name of the dish and a list of all allergens.
Community Kitchen, which is staffed mainly by volunteers, prepares hundreds of meals a day. These are distributed primarily to a humanitarian hub for asylum seekers and refugees. Whilst food safety is of course a top priority for Community Kitchen and its partners, AFSCA’s stringent rules threaten to undermine the efforts of Community Kitchen and other charities to feed the most impoverished people in our city.
“Putting labels on each small portion of food that’s going to be handed out in an hour’s time seems like a very tall order for a group of volunteers, who are already feeling overwhelmed by an ever-increasing demand [for our services],” Catriona Laing, a coordinator at Community Kitchen, told the media outlet BX1.
Nathan Torrini from partner organisation Serve The City agrees: “We’re here to respond to a humanitarian crisis. I don’t think our charities should be diverted from their mission by rules that make no sense,” he said.
AFSCA argues that the rules, imposed by the EU, are necessary to ensure public food safety. “If there’s illness or contamination, we need to be able to trace its source and remove that foodstuff from the market so that more people don’t eat it and fall ill,” spokesperson Aline Van Den Broeck told BX1. She added that labelling rules had already been relaxed for charities, and that certain information about ingredients and allergens could be given orally.
AFSCA says it plans to run food safety training sessions for volunteers working in the sector, starting in December 2022.
Read the full article from BX1 [in French].
