Understanding how large companies, retailers, manufacturers, and regulators evaluate food producers is critical for any business operating in the food industry. From food safety and regulatory compliance to pricing, quality, and fraud prevention, suppliers must meet increasingly complex expectations to maintain and grow their partnerships with major customers.
Bobby has led the development of Foodwatch, Dubai’s digital food safety platform, and has played a pivotal role in authoring Dubai’s Food Code and pioneering the PIC Program. His data-driven approach to public health has been recognized with international leadership awards, and his experience with global food safety bodies gives him a unique perspective on industry best practices.
What You’ll Learn:
This session will explore:
- Key Criteria Used by Regulators and Retailers to Evaluate Suppliers
Learn about the risk-based frameworks, certification programs, and performance metrics that define supplier compliance today. - The Role of Digital Systems in Supplier Assessment
Discover how platforms like Foodwatch are transforming inspections, audits, and real-time risk management in the food supply chain. - Insights from Global and Local Best Practices
Bobby will share real-world lessons from Dubai’s regulatory system and how they align with global standards.
About Bobby Krishna
[00:00:00] Cronan McNamara: Hello, and welcome everyone to our fourth webinar in our series about how large retailers and manufacturers, and regulators evaluate suppliers for food safety. We’ve spoken to industry leaders and we’ve talked to regulators and thought leaders, and I’m delighted to have here with us today and probably someone who doesn’t need any introduction, but I’ll introduce them anyway, it’s Bobby Krishna, of course, from Dubai municipality, the Food Safety Authority in Dubai. And Bobby has been working there since 2005 and has made many contributions in shaping Dubai’s and the international food safety landscape. He’s been instrumental in developing Food Watch, Dubai’s Digital Food Safety Management Platform, which is a risk-based food inspection platform that we’d like to talk about a little bit today.
He also runs the hugely successful and prestigious Dubai International Food Safety Conference in Dubai each winter, and I’ve been there many times myself and delighted to be applying to speak again this year. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in food safety to look into attending the conference in November.
Bobby has completed a Master’s in Food Science and Technology, and he’s a member of the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods, ICMSF, and the International Association for Food Protection, which we would’ve just completed the major conference there in Cleveland, where we had a good chance to catch up.
So it was great to see you over there, Bobby. He’s received many awards, including the NSF International Food Safety Leadership Award and the President’s Award from IFP as well. So welcome, Bobby.
About Cronan McNamara
I’m Cronan McNamara. I’m the host of this series. I’m the founder and CEO of Creme Global. We’ve just completed two decades of food safety data work, and we’re dedicated to scientific excellence and technical development to deliver tools and models to help decision makers in food regulators and industry to make better decisions around food safety. So we’re combining science with real world applications and trying to come up with solutions for the food safety sector. And our goal is to really use the most modern data science and AI methods to enhance food safety, data sharing transparency, and even things like operational efficiency.
So welcome again, Bobby. Good to see you again. How are you keeping.
[00:02:32] Bobby Krishna: Good to see you Cronan. Enjoying the summer here.
[00:02:35] Cronan McNamara: Summer in Dubai must be hot.
[00:02:38] Bobby Krishna: Yeah hot holding temperatures.
About the Dubai Food Safety Conference
[00:02:41] Cronan McNamara: It’s been a nice summer here in Ireland, but a lot cooler than Dubai. So the thing I really like about the Dubai Food Safety Conference is it’s in the wintertime, and we get to get a little bit of sun to keep us going through our dark, cold winters here in Ireland.
So absolutely, gimme a break. Great. And Bobby always does a great job and looks after us so well. So tell us more about this year’s event. When’s it on, and what are the major topics you wanna cover at the event?
[00:03:10] Bobby Krishna: We will start on the 17th of November and run until the 19th, and post-conference workshops will be there for the next two days.
So we are going that whole week in November. This year’s topic, of course, is your favorite topic too. We are looking at the details of AI and innovation. Pretty excited about sharing the new developments and how it is impacting food safety. More importantly, we wanna look at all aspects of AI, like how it is shaping our thinking and how it’s gonna direct the thinking in the future. Plus, what are the limitations, and how should we regulate AI? How are we looking at data? How do we prepare ourselves for that AI age, et cetera. So that’s one part. And then we’ve got our traditional. What we call the core business, and that’s more to do with food safety culture, looking at microbiological and chemical risk analysis. Yeah. And we will also be talking about Dubai chocolate. I’m driving the Dubai chocolate. It’s gonna be an exciting session.
[00:04:16] Cronan McNamara: Dubai chocolate has gone viral, I believe, on social media.
[00:04:20] Bobby Krishna: Absolutely. And there’s so much of news around food safety too. We saw mycotoxin, salmonella, to recall, and most of these products don’t even come from Dubai, so we’ll be talking about it.
[00:04:32] Cronan McNamara: That’s fascinating. So I’m delighted to hear about AI being a big theme in the event. I think it’s very timely to discuss the intersection of AI and food safety because AI has exploded in the last year or so in terms of the capability of these large language models.
And how they’re helping us do our jobs in every day, but also the risks and limitations. I’m really looking forward to a conversation on that. So before we kick off on our, get back to AI, which we will come back to, ’cause I always have a few questions on AI Towards the second half of our interview, I’d like to ask you a little bit more about your day-to-day role in regulatory.
How does Dubai assess compliance around food safety when it comes to suppliers?
In Dubai and in your job and with your team, how do you assess compliance around food safety when it comes to suppliers? There are many suppliers and you’ve a lot of imports as well, I believe, and how do you keep track of all that and assess all that’s going on and look for risk and re mitigate it?
[00:05:31] Bobby Krishna: We import 95% of our food. And I think even for the foods that we produce here, the bulk of the ingredients would come from other countries, including feed for animals. So we’re heavily reliant on this. And if you look at the quantities, we are talking about like 8 million tons, and 60% of the foods that come into the UAE comes to Dubai.
We also do a lot of reexports, so we support the countries in the region, and that’s a volume that’s steadily increasing. And, the trade has seen a 24% increase last year. This is a non-oil trade in the UAE. So we carry a highly impactful trade route. And also, with the changes in political and economic situations, Dubai plays a major role in moving food to areas where people are desperate for food, and that makes it very important for us not just to work for food safety within the country, but also in making sure that the supplies that go out are safe. Now we have a single agency, which is a relief, and we look at import inspection at the ports. We look at food facility inspections, restaurants, food service, and manufacturing, and we also develop policies, trainings, and manage the data that’s coming in from all these systems. And historically, we’ve also been into digitalization for more than two decades and almost 25 years. And that gives us a good lead in making sure that data is utilized for our decisions.
This is where most of my time goes as a person.
[00:07:10] Cronan McNamara: That is great to hear that data plays a big role, and I think you’re ahead of the curve, maybe internationally, on digitizing the work that you do in terms of inspections. Do you have like in, as part of your system that you created, it’s called the we talked about a moment ago, the Food Watch system.
[00:07:27] Bobby Krishna: Yeah, that’s, so that’s one of the systems. The primary import inspections are what we call the IRS and Montaji+ systems that operate to ensure that products are imported. Based on our requirements.
We have systems to look at the risk-based inspections. On imports. Then we look at warehouse inspections using that system, import testing, and also sampling protocols are managed there. And we’ve got a smart inspection system that looks at food facility inspections. And then Food Watch is like a business tool. It’s a tool that food businesses use to manage their food safety data. These are the three components that we look at. They are all connected at the backend. So you know, people and users can move between the systems, depending on their rules. This comes with the legacy of digital transformation that has happened over several decades. And because of that, we were able to get our users to be data competent and digitally savvy. And that allows us to experiment with new products and new solutions, constantly. That’s also a curse sometimes because you tend to move fast and then, trying to roll back and see, hey, do we think the previous system was better? Or do you wanna invest more in the future? Yeah. It’s a very interesting space. And I’m really happy to be in the middle of this chaos.
[00:08:54] Cronan McNamara: It’s great to have that digitalized capability. Is there any paper-based work going on at all in Dubai still? Using pen and paper and scanning in documents?
[00:09:08] Bobby Krishna: So the digitization has happened in most cases because you’re just scanning the documents and making them digital. But digitalization in the true sense, where you can utilize that data, is still a problem. Especially when you look at the international exchange of information like your health certificates.
And a lot of the import documents still come as paper-based or printed documents, and you have to get them uploaded. And with tools like OCR, we are able to convert a lot into text. The optimal data value is still not realized.
And some of the documentation still has to be paper-based, just because you have a digital divide that you need to address, and it’s not always that digital transactions are smarter. So we still keep some emergency measures in place.
[00:09:58] Cronan McNamara: That’s interesting. So not pure, fully digitalized, but definitely really far along that journey.
What are the common food safety compliance issues you see in Dubai?
What kind of compliance issues do you see that are important or lead to warnings or even penalties on your providers or suppliers? What kind of, what are common compliance issues?
[00:10:15] Bobby Krishna: When we look at compliance, we look at two very different processes. One is our import inspection processes, where we are looking at importers who could be based in Dubai, but operate mostly in the countries where they export the food from. And then you’ve got the local businesses primarily importing these foods and distributing across the city. And then you’ve got the food service and retail operators who work on selling this to consumers.
We must say that we have a fairly good compliance within the country, but trade often depends on the fluctuations and the market supply and demand. When there is a problem with the supplies, instances of food fraud often go up.
Just like any other place in the world which is reliant on a larger supply chain. So the vulnerabilities exist in those. And when you look at compliance, we see that the majority of our businesses work very closely with us in the government and make sure that they comply as much as possible.
There could be unintentional deviations; we definitely work with the companies to solve those. But very rarely do we see an intentional contamination. And that’s often seen with new suppliers, and that’s a reason why we take time to trust people and then have measures in place to make sure that we have enough data to trust people or vice versa.
So testing protocols. Inspection protocols are different for different businesses, depending on their history of compliance. And if there are measures required to stop completely an import process or to stop manufacturing a product, we will take that; penalties can be heavy, including closure of the business.
And that can happen very quickly in Dubai. In the case of retail businesses, that’s very rare, because businesses take action. So the moment an inspector picks up a problem or an auditor or an internal check picks up a problem, they’re likely to rectify it. And just like anywhere else in the world, you still have a smaller group that would struggle to comply because of economic, social, or cultural reasons.
And those are the groups that we would work with to enhance compliance.
How does Dubai cope amidst the current global pressures like inflation, tariffs, and supply chain disruption?
[00:12:29] Cronan McNamara: That sounds good. And a good collaborative relationship with the industry. We have a lot going on there, from imports to internal industry to food service to look after. And you mentioned the international challenges and that food fraud is a global issue, so we’d be interested in understanding how Dubai is coping, as such a trading nation, how it’s coping amidst the current global pressures like inflation, tariffs, and supply chain disruption. How are you coping, and what kind of food fraud risks are you seeing coming out of the back of all of this chaos in the international markets?
[00:13:06] Bobby Krishna: For all these things we rely on the horizon scanning tools.
Look at and just look at the news and see what’s going on in other countries. Scrape the web and find out what are the trends. And we are never insulated from the changes that are going on around.
So we’ve seen that some of the products of concern would be. Olive oil alteration is a huge problem. Also misbranding, mislabeling, et cetera. And another product would be Basmati rice. Again, we saw news in the UK where there were issues with branding, and then Dubai Chocolate is now a product of concern because it has two ingredients that are really short.One is cocoa. The global supply is really short. And also pistachios, green pistachios that come primarily from Iraq. So if we look at products that are popular in the market and or consumption is pretty high, and then you look at the supply chain and say, Hey, here’s a shortage of supply, there’s a very high chance that alteration is going to hit that.
These are products of concern. But then we also test other products for ingredients that are not declared. Those are the anomalies. Minor issues that we see. But we also see problems with global trade in a way that the buyer and the supplier have an agreement to put the product in a desired state, they would say, ” this is the quality I want, but label it as this”, and then. When it passed through the buyer, you’re looking at this product and saying, ‘this is not what it really says’. And then the supplier says, “Oh, you just ship it out of the country”.
And they take it out and go. This could be a problem that could be affecting the importing country more than us. And we may not have our role to play. So we deal with all this as separate boxes and try to do as much as possible to make sure that the product is safe.
And what the documents say is what it represents. We’re on a constant vigil.
[00:15:09] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, so you have your own labs there for testing. So you test products randomly, and if you find things you’re, it might be that it’s not going to be distributed in Dubai, so it’s getting exported as a lot of your product is because your trading port there is a massive trading port in the UAE.
So that’s fascinating to see that.
A risk-based testing protocol
[00:15:30] Bobby Krishna: Yeah, we do test on a risk-based protocol, looking at high chances of non-compliance, you would test the company. But then that also builds in the bias, right? For a period of time, you’re just testing the products that have already been spotted.
So what we are trying to do now is to make sure that we de-bias the mechanism once in a while. And as you mentioned, you wanna revisit some of these products because you might see new threats. Like what we saw with radioactive shrimps in the news at Walmart.
I think there’s a value in going random. You might pick up surprises.
[00:16:03] Cronan McNamara: Even with risk-based schemes, you should still have an element of randomness, just maybe a little bit more weighted towards the things.
Just getting value from your investment in testing, but also keeping a nice random element to it.
Packaging innovations in food delivery
Looking at sustainability and regulation, we’re seeing a lot of new initiatives like clean label and innovative packaging.
And this comes back to another question about food delivery. Packaging innovation might be great in terms of sustainability and reducing plastics, but it could also have a problem or an impact on food safety, shelf life, or the integrity of the packaging type.
Have you seen any issues around that in the work you’re doing in Dubai?
[00:16:50] Bobby Krishna: We’ve not really seen a major problem there. We have a ban on plastics for retail and food service. But not on primary packaging that comes on food. The grocery packs and, like the loose packs have been, have they have restrictions but not really food products and packaging on it. The, like the first layer of packaging. Yeah. And, i’m just trying to see like there are no specific products of concern. And there’s a very interesting angle to this because in Dubai and in most of GCC countries, most products have a rigid shelf life.
Yeah. And this is particularly with products that could have that can support microbiologic growth. So the government controls the shelf life, so there’s no incentive for somebody to change packaging and get along a shelf life. So the, those kind of inventions, probably may not hit Dubai unless the businesses want to improve the quality of products and within the same framework, right? So that, that race is not here. But on the other hand, we do encourage businesses to go sustainable and not just in plastic, but also in reducing waste and in, optimizing production. There are a lot of campaigns that we are involved in as The Food Safety department in reducing food waste and also food loss all across the supply chain. And we, so we don’t just manage food safety, we also look at other components of food. So looking at system as a whole. That gives us more opportunities to work on other aspect of the supply chain and also consumer behavior that can lead to more sustainable measures.
[00:18:25] Cronan McNamara: Consumer outreach, et cetera. Yeah. Very good. And I was just going to ask you the prevalence of restaurants now doing home delivery has exploded in Ireland and Europe, and I probably know USA, is that the same in Dubai?
Do they all do that now and is that a new thing and…
[00:18:42] Bobby Krishna: oh, it’s not a new thing.
We always had deliveries because you know that’s. That’s something that has been culturally here for a very long time. Here we call the groceries, like the small stores as groceries. Not the American groceries. So here stores always deliver food to the neighborhood for free, and this has always been the case. Yeah, I’ve seen this in restaurants.
[00:19:02] Cronan McNamara: Restaurants too?
[00:19:03] Bobby Krishna: Restaurants always did too. Yeah. So I think with the delivery platforms coming in, the volume definitely has increased.
It has made deliveries more predictable. Yeah. So you know exactly when it’s gonna come. So perhaps. It’s more convenient now, especially during summer months to sit at home and get those deliveries faster or, on a time bound.
[00:19:24] Cronan McNamara: Because it’s rapidly changing over here, there might be concerns.
Have they really thought through the food safety aspects of it? Like of the bags and the packaging and the delivery mechanisms? Mostly on mopeds and bicycles over here. Electric bicycles generally, so they don’t have to pedal too much. But so yeah. You’re happy enough with the, yeah, mechanisms?
[00:19:44] Bobby Krishna: And also we have a control licensing system for the businesses. So it’s not like anybody with a bike can deliver. We have bike companies, because of the licensing processes here, you cannot use a third party delivery person to deliver products to all of them. You have to go through a licensed business that operates as a delivery operator. And those bikes have the permits and the government looks at how the driver is. And whether they’re trained, et cetera. So there is still a regulatory framework behind it that kind of supports the system.
How is AI and data influencing the food safety compliance effort in Dubai?
[00:20:19] Cronan McNamara: Moving on then to a topic close to my heart, technology and AI. So how do you see, with all the digitization work you’re doing, how do you see the role of AI influencing, the work you do and aiding in the compliance effort of the, your food safety work?
[00:20:36] Bobby Krishna: I think, there’s so many interesting ways in which AI is influencing, and as I mentioned earlier, purely document conversion into text in the easiest thing to do. OCR have taken over a lot of our typing work. And the second aspect would be in risk estimation, product sampling, testing, et cetera, where we are equally, like concerned about too, because we were trying to see whether these systems, built by us very quickly, are they really picking up risk-based items? So human intervention is necessary in those decisions. Then we are now experimenting on using AI for inspections. Mostly generative AI. To capture information. To see whether inspectors can write reports properly, and more importantly, can we also help businesses to inspect on their own, take corrective actions and preventive measures based on the recommendations and make sure that they go in a cycle of evaluation and then reassessment and then, finding out and measure ways to make sure that they comply effectively. And also use that to train the folks in food safety. So that that’s a very useful learning tool. And with the language capabilities, these language models have you can translate pretty much anything into any language. And that’s a big thing for Dubai because we have people working in here from 186 countries. Most of the, workforce is imported. And these language switches really helps.
It’s the same with work processes as well. So we are able to communicate between the teams that we use. English and Arabic. It’s very easy to switch between languages when we develop things, when we communicate within the team. So that’s one aspect that, that we are really keen on exploring.
And also using it for training. Using it for, even simple podcasts in a natural language would really help get the concepts more deeper into the system. And where else do we have AI? We’re developing also virtual reality, trainings for inspectors, for businesses, and also looking at how we can use that for influencing food behavior among children.
So that’s a space that we are looking at. We are also looking at using virtual inspection tools and and we wanna see whether we can convert the recordings on the video into text. So those are pilots which we have planned for this year. So that’s on the interesting or the front end.
And then backend, it’s all about data, looking at how can we move faster? And we also want to explore agentic AI as we look at it like, we, we talking about it, so that team looks at those as interesting areas to explore.
[00:23:24] Cronan McNamara: Wow, that’s that’s a lot. And a great use cases from simple text extraction, data extraction from documents right through to languages and podcasting and agentic, which I think has great potential. Once we get our head rounds, what are the best things to be doing with it? So that’s gonna be a fascinating discussion at the Dubai conference this winter.
Looking 10 years ahead, what does success look like?
I’ve got two, two big questions to wrap up, Bobby. Future vision focused on this one. So looking 10 years ahead, what would success look like?
To Bobby, you’re probably about to retire. Take it easy. Maybe 10 years away, maybe more, I’m not sure. But what’s that headline that you’d love to see as success in 10 years For food safety?
[00:24:08] Bobby Krishna: What I don’t wanna see is dealing with the same food safety problems. Like the list is gonna change for sure.
You’re gonna see new hazards, you’re gonna have new threats. Humanity is gonna work differently in the next decade. So I just wanna make sure that we don’t lose out on the race. And what I think is, we’ve got a lot of hope on AI, but as a person who, in my own limited way I’ve experienced it, there’s a lot of hallucination, there’s a lot of issues with generative AI as we see here. And. I wanna spend time on, on educating people on how these technologies can shape. Yeah. And how should we interact with these technologies? Yeah, great. Good point. And I’ve also worked very closely with product development teams, IT and data teams. And I don’t think there are many people in the food safety space who’ve worked hands-on with this with the such kind of diverse group of developers.
I wanna use my expertise to train other people. And help them build relationship with groups that they don’t often meet. Connecting a space and I want to continue the work on the conference. And what you’re doing is great by the way sessions like this where we can bring in cross expertise. And I also want to make sure that food safety is trending, sounding sexy all the time. We wanna make sure that it is interesting and not a boring science. That would be the the thing that I want to spend my energy on.
[00:25:39] Cronan McNamara: Lots of work still to do and you’re doing a great job in that connectivity, traveling to conferences, heavily involved in IAFP on their organizing committee and all the outreach you do with your own conference. And, but I agree the AI piece is very fascinating ’cause that’ll be, moving fast in the next 10 years.
AI as a collaborator, not the final decision maker.
And I, we look at it today as a kind of a collaborator on our team where you have to. Build that trust and understand its limitations and what it’s good at and what it’s not so good at. So you can collaborate with AI, but always have to have that person signing off on the results of AI. So that’s somebody’s responsibility to say “it’s fine”.
I used AI to do some of my research or some of my work, but “I’ve read it and I’m signing off on it”, so that’s a good policy I suppose. And just to finally wrap up. And I’m looking forward to more discussions around that on, in Dubai, how do we use AI now and over the next few years.
One clear message to food industry leaders. Keep learning and sharing.
But in the last message then, that you’d like to send, if there would be one clear message to food industry leaders about, how to minimize the risk of having any crisis in the future, any food safety issue, what would that one message be?
[00:26:48] Bobby Krishna: I think you need to keep learning.
And there’s so many resources available on the worldwide web. You can connect with anybody in the world. Through LinkedIn, through podcasts, through YouTube, and learning the right thing is really important. May not be the right thing, but keep learning new things.
And you have to figure out whether it’s right or wrong. Just negotiate through that learning process and connect with people and share that knowledge and expand. So that’s very important to talk to each other and keep learning. I think we shouldn’t really compartmentalize our learning process, especially when we are dealing with a world where you are expected to know everything. You have to be a polymath. And I think that’s the future for many individuals who going into the career and they have to learn about a whole lot of things and do everything in a fairly decent way. At least know where you can get that information from Yeah.
[00:27:47] Cronan McNamara: For leaders, yeah, I think is keep their team working and learning. And also keep in touch internationally. Keep in touch with what’s going on, learn from each other. I think that is the way to at least minimize the risk of any food safety crisis in the future.
[00:28:05] Bobby Krishna: Absolutely. And that’s a concern too that I notice Cronan. Like I see people experimenting with generative AI and new tools. But they burn out very quickly, so you see a problem and then they don’t come back.
So you have to be persistent. You keep trying. And most of these machines learn. And if you don’t do this, and you will end up monopolizing a certain technology that everybody likes. But because you don’t try the ones that are failing initially and encouraging them to do better, you might end up with just one that has got a massive success rate and at some point of time you’re gonna be the victim of that monopoly.
So I think knowledge monopolies would also come in. It’ll be with very few people if you’re not careful. So as a humanity, I think we have to invest heavily on learning.
[00:28:50] Cronan McNamara: That’s a big risk as well with AI. People’s skills might diminish as they rely more and more on AI. So it’s important to keep those skills and hopefully keep the learnings.
[00:29:00] Bobby Krishna: Apply for new things all the time. Look at what’s going on.
[00:29:03] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. Very good. Thank you so much Bobby, for taking the time to speak to us today. It’s been a really insightful discussion and please do send any questions in Bobby and I will try and answer them on LinkedIn. We might even record an extra bit of content if, you know any questions come up.
So thanks all for joining us. Thanks Bobby. And we’ll see you
[00:29:23] Bobby Krishna: join us in Dubai,
[00:29:24] Cronan McNamara: in Dubai for the rest of November.
[00:29:27] Bobby Krishna: Looking forward
[00:29:27] Cronan McNamara: to it already, so thanks all.
Automated Summary
Introduction
- Host: Cronan McNamara (CEO of Creme Global).
- Guest: Bobby Krishna, Food Safety Expert, Dubai Municipality (since 2005).
- Bobby has led Food Watch, Dubai’s digital food safety management platform, and organizes the Dubai International Food Safety Conference.
- He is also part of global food safety bodies (ICMSF, IAFP) and a recipient of multiple leadership awards.
Conference Insights
- The next Dubai International Food Safety Conference (November 17–19, with workshops afterward) will focus on:
- AI and innovation in food safety – opportunities, risks, and regulation.
Food Supply and Compliance in Dubai
- 95% of food in Dubai is imported, with 60% of UAE imports entering via Dubai.
- Dubai is a global re-export hub, with rising non-oil trade (24% increase last year).
- The Dubai Food Safety Authority manages:
- Import inspections (IRS & Montaji+ systems)
- Risk-based testing protocols & warehouse inspections
- Food Watch, used by businesses for compliance and safety data.
- Digitalization: Over 25 years of digital systems allow advanced data-driven decisions.
- Still, some import documents remain paper-based, requiring OCR and manual uploads.
Compliance Challenges
- Common issues:
- Food fraud during supply shortages (e.g., olive oil adulteration, basmati rice mislabeling).
- Misbranding, undeclared ingredients, and international trade irregularities.
- Approach:
- Strong collaboration with businesses to resolve unintentional deviations.
- Heavy penalties (including closures) for intentional violations.
- Risk-based testing complemented with random sampling to detect new threats.
Global Food Safety Risks
- Products of concern: Olive oil, basmati rice, cocoa, pistachios.
- Dubai chocolate flagged as high-risk due to shortages of core ingredients.
- Horizon scanning and global monitoring help identify fraud risks.
- Dubai runs its own labs for testing, balancing targeted and random checks.
Sustainability and Packaging
- Dubai bans plastic bags in retail/food service but still permits primary food packaging.
- Shelf life is government-regulated, so packaging innovations for extended life are less relevant.
- Strong focus on sustainability and reducing food waste throughout the supply chain.
Food Delivery Systems
- Food delivery has long been embedded in Dubai culture.
- Strict licensing framework:
- Only approved delivery companies can operate.
- Government oversees drivers, training, and vehicles.
- Provides safer oversight compared to less-regulated systems elsewhere.
Role of AI in Food Safety
- Applications in Dubai’s systems:
- OCR for document digitization.
- AI in risk assessment and inspections (report writing, business self-assessments).
- Multilingual communication (workers from 186 countries).
- Generative AI for training, reports, podcasts, and VR simulations.
- Experimental projects in agentic AI and virtual inspections.
- Opportunities: Improves compliance, training, and efficiency.
- Limitations: AI hallucinations and over-reliance are major concerns.
Future Outlook
- 10-Year Vision:
- Avoid repeating the same food safety issues.
- Leverage AI responsibly, with human oversight.
- Ensure food safety remains engaging and attractive to new generations.
- Key Message to Industry Leaders:
- “Keep learning.”
- Use global resources (LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasts).
- Encourage persistence with emerging technologies to avoid monopolies.
- Promote cross-disciplinary knowledge and international collaboration.
Final Takeaway:
Dubai positions itself as a global leader in digitalized, risk-based, and AI-supported food safety management. The key to resilience against fraud, crises, and future challenges lies in continuous learning, innovation, and collaboration across borders and industries
