FDA proudly destroying 'unwholesome'​ goods

Selling expired goods and a “proud” Food and Drugs Authority showing how good they are protecting the country’s health and food safety by catching the culprits.

I wonder why our FDA is not adapting to more modern standards on food safety and why they are not following or developing African or Ghanaian food safety standards.

Europeans have, in my opinion, the worst food safety regulations in the world. They are using food safety standards based upon: food has to be healthy for everyone. In other words food safety standards that a healthy person doesn't need. This approach is not only costing millions extra for 95% of the population that doesn't need such high standards but also leading to healthy people having lower and lower natural resistance.

Natural resistance we, Africans need to be able to stand our local conditions of water and food products. For that reason alone we need different and African standards for healthy people and stricter standards for the sick and weak people.

Now let's bring you down (my) memory lane because whenever a "proud" FDA destroys another batch of unwholesome goods it always reminds me of my time serving in the Dutch Army.

Like all boys my age, I had to serve in the Dutch army from the age of 18. After several weeks of training and exercising, we were allowed to go home to spend the weekend away for the first time on Friday afternoon after room inspection.

On Wednesday, our lieutenant announced that the CADI, food supplies department was selling surplus emergency 24 hr packages for the price of 1 guider (0.45 Euro).

The content of each box was: 1 Can of butter, 1 can of cheese, 1 can of beef, potato, and vegetable stew, 1 can of soup, milk powder, coffee powder, sugar, 1 toilet roll, 1 condom, cookies, and a chocolate bar.

Not a bad price for just 1 guilder, so I bought the maximum I could carry home, being 3 packages.

I saw three different expiring dates on the packages out of which 1 box was older than I was at that moment. I am not a difficult person and never throw things away before smelling and if ok, tasting them.

I started with the oldest 19-year-old box, I bought bread and found out that the cheese was still just an ordinary gouda cheese. I gave some to my friends without telling them how old the cheese was and nobody complained.

The same weekend, I tried the cookies with the coffee and found in another packet a can of ravioli instead of soup. I am not a ravioli fan, but the ravioli was still just as tasteless as all other ravioli but not spoiled.

I also shared the meat and vegetables with my friends and we all enjoyed our 18 to 19-year-old meal. All of them asked me to bring more of these 24-hour packages, but unfortunately the next week they were sold out.

I worked in the food industry for several decades and know that in some countries around the world, producers, wholesalers, and others can offer expired goods for relabeling to health authorities for approval.

Typical products are Tinned foods, Frozen foods Dried foods, beans, rice, chocolates, biscuits, etc.

Many countries around the world are trying to waste less food and are changing texts on these goods from Expiry Date to Best Before Date.

Almost all foodstuff is stored in the way as subscribed on the label: Store in a dry place, keep refrigerated at minus 4 degrees, keep frozen at minus 18 degrees, etc., can be kept for a longer period of time.

A correctly frozen meat with an expiring date of 18 or 24 months can safely be consumed after 5 years if stored correctly under 18 degrees.

But the Food and Drugs Authority of Ghana destroys all expired products.

Our FDA chases and exposes (mainly foreign-owned) shops and shop owners for selling perfect edible but expired foodstuff.

Yes, we are a poor country, yes we have people for whom these cheaper products will be more accessible than non-expired food.

Why doesn’t our FDA follow more modern guidelines to allow relabelling after testing these expired goods on health safety?

Don’t you think its funny that a petty shop can buy a few boxes of frozen chicken at a wholesale cold store, load it in the trotro, and store the completely defrosted chicken in a fridge that is opening countless times during the daytime to sell out of it but can't do so because the product is not expired?

Whilst a wholesaler has to destroy or have his perfectly stored product being destroyed at his cost with a penalty and threat of closure of his cold store because his product is expired.

Please FDA modernize your policies, I know the current policies are posed upon us or copied from the EU, USA, and others, but they themselves have changed.

Please change and stop needless destruction of perfect good food and capital destruction of our business people.

P.S: I don’t condone crooks and cheaters who knowingly sell bad and unsafe products for consumption, but these are not the cases I am writing about.