المملكة: Seizing 5,250 kg of spoiled food and stopping random activities in residential buildings in Jeddah

The Jeddah Governorate Municipality revealed, during an expanded joint campaign, that it seized a number of random sites that engage in illegal activities, including storing and selling Spoiled food materials, and the operation of unregulated factories for preparing sweets and baked goods, in addition to the operation of sewing workshops and medical clinics inside residential buildings outside the regulatory framework.

The total damaged quantities destroyed amounted to 5,250 kilograms, in addition to various confiscations that included equipment, supplies, preparation tools, gas, and production supplies.

Random activities

The Director General of Monitoring and Treating Negative Phenomena, Yasser bin Siraj Bakhsh, explained that the field teams, with the participation of the Umm al-Salam Sub-municipality and the Ijadah team affiliated with the secretariat, and a number of relevant authorities, stopped at connected sites in the south of the governorate that include activities that are managed in random ways and pose a threat to public health and consumer safety.

He indicated that the entities participating in the campaign included the Zakat, Tax, and Customs Authority, the Ministry of Commerce, the Food and Drug General Authority, the Field Control, and the Civil Defense.

Bakhsh indicated that the teams seized an illegal sewing workshop operating without any regulatory documents inside one of the informal buildings. Five sewing machines and their tables were confiscated, in addition to an illegal grocery store operating without licenses. The teams also discovered a random warehouse next to the building, used to store and sell food items of unknown origin that showed signs of spoilage, including sheep meats and heads inside 11 large refrigerators, where 3,850 kilograms of spoiled materials were destroyed, and the refrigerators, 4 gas cylinders, and a large cooking pot were confiscated.

The teams also monitored an informal medical clinic inside a residential room where medical work was being carried out by a person Unidentified, where 4 beds and a desk were confiscated, and various medications were destroyed due to poor storage, with the housing owner notified for review.

The teams continued their work in a second random location within a residential square opposite the first location, inside which 4 large refrigerators were found containing spoiled materials similar to what was seized previously, where an additional 1,400 kilograms were destroyed. Another residence was also seized containing a refrigerator with damaged materials and an illegal sewing activity whose equipment and 76 women’s abayas were confiscated.

In a related context, the teams visited an apartment inside a building consisting of 6 apartments that is being used as a factory for preparing sweets in unsanitary conditions, where they seized 650 kilograms of damaged sweets, in addition to 2,160 eggs that did not bear data or expiration dates. 8 gas cylinders were also confiscated, the valid ones were handed over to charitable organizations, all invalid materials were destroyed, and the rest of the apartments were verified to be free of any violating activity.

The campaign also included stores inside a gas station, where one of them was opened with support from the Civil Defense, and it became clear that it was being used as a large factory to produce baked goods and biscuits without licenses, in quantities ready for distribution, bearing the same stickers seized in the sweets factory. The case was received by the Ejada team due to suspicion of a commercial cover-up and the completion of regulatory procedures.

Bakhsh confirmed that the Jeddah Municipality, in coordination with the relevant authorities, continues to implement its monitoring campaigns to reduce random activities and raise the level of food safety, calling on residents to report any similar sites via the “Baladi” application or the 940 Report Center.

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