The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) continued to make all-out efforts in 2016 to safeguard food safety and maintain a clean and hygienic environment for the people of Hong Kong.

Food safety

Major food incidents

The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the FEHD is committed to maintaining an effective surveillance system to uphold food safety control on food animals and ensure that the food entering the market is fit for human consumption. In 2016, we tackled two major incidents, the incident of pigs tainted with prohibited veterinary drug in August and the incident of hairy crabs detected with dioxins in November.

The detection of prohibited veterinary drug in urine samples from imported pigs and the inadvertent release of the affected pigs to the market in August 2016 attracted wide community attention and aroused public concern over our gate-keeping ability in preventing pigs failing the beta-agoinst screening tests from being discharged to the market. In response, the Department swiftly put in place improvement measures to ensure that no pigs can be slaughtered and discharged to the market unless the concerned consignment has passed the screening tests.

In November 2016, two hairy crab samples collected for tests under the seasonal food surveillance project were found to contain levels of dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls exceeding the action level adopted by the CFS. The CFS suspended the import and sale within Hong Kong of the hairy crabs from the two concerned aquaculture farms in the Mainland to protect public health. Follow-up surveillance against hairy crabs was also stepped up. The CFS will continue to respond to and manage food incidents in a timely manner so as to protect public health in Hong Kong.

Food surveillance and risk assessment

The Food Surveillance Programme implemented by the CFS in 2016 revealed that food safety in Hong Kong remained at a high standard. During the year, in addition to 73,700 samples of imported Japanese food taken for testing of radiation level, about 65,500 food samples taken at the import, wholesale and retail levels were tested by the CFS. The overall satisfactory rate was 99.8 per cent, which was comparable to the results in recent years.

Apart from routine food surveillance, the CFS conducted a number of targeted as well as seasonal and popular food surveillance projects in the past year which form part of the food surveillance strategy. The CFS also released results of several risk assessment projects, namely: "Aluminium in Food (a follow-up study)", "Pyrrolizidine Alkaoids in Food", "Sodium Content in Soups" and "Sugar Content in Local Sweet Soups", with the latter two studies jointly conducted with the Consumer Council.

Regulation of online sale of food

In view of the increasing popularity of buying and selling of food via the internet or social media platforms, a new set of permits for regulation of operators selling restricted foods online was introduced for application with effect from February 2016. The FEHD has also stepped up monitoring of online food sale activities and taken enforcement actions against unlicensed food business, including unlicensed food factories selling mooncakes online.

Regulation of food products for infants and young children

To better protect the health of infants and young children, the requirements of the Food and Drugs (Composition and Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulation 2014 concerning nutrition labelling of follow-up formula and pre-packaged food for infants and young children under the age of 36 months took effect in June 2016. The requirements on nutrition labelling and nutritional composition of infant formula already came into operation in December 2015.

Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food

In the past year, the CFS continued to promote the reduction of dietary salt and sugar intake through a series of publicity and education activities under the theme "Hong Kong's Action on Salt and Sugar Reduction - Healthy Cooking Starts Small". One of the initiatives was the "Junior Chefs' Culinary Ideas of Salt and Sugar Reduction Competition" which encouraged participants, mostly students of primary and secondary schools, to create and try out recipes for dishes with reduced salt and sugar.

The Centre also organised the fourth meeting of the International Advisory Panel on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food in November 2016 during which the international experts advised on local initiatives on the reduction of intake of salt and sugar in food and shared related experiences in other places.

Environmental hygiene

Keep clean

To sustain the efforts in keeping Hong Kong clean and educating the public to discard refuse properly, newly designed litter containers with smaller openings and bigger warning notices affixed on the containers were introduced in June 2016. The public are reminded not to discard refuse at side or on top of litter containers and that bagged refuse from households or shops should be disposed of at refuse collection points, in the hope that the hygiene conditions on streets would be improved. To enhance publicity, Keep Clean Ambassador Ah Tak and a dedicated Facebook page for Ah Tak were also created to disseminate keep clean messages to the general public through social media.

In addition, the Department, with the support of respective District Councils, launched a pilot scheme on the installation of Internet Protocol cameras at a total of six refuse dumping blackspots in Central and Western, Sham Shui Po and Yuen Long districts in December 2016 to strengthen the monitoring of illegal dumping of refuse. FEHD officers are closely monitoring the targeted blackspots and will revise the action plans according to actual circumstances to enhance the effectiveness of enforcement actions. The pilot scheme will be reviewed after six months of implementation.

Shop front extension problem

The Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness and Obstruction) Ordinance came into operation in September 2016 to introduce a fixed penalty system as an additional enforcement tool to tackle the problem of shop front extensions. Being one of the departments empowered to enforce the fixed penalty system, FEHD officers including the special task force teams will continue to take stringent enforcement actions against illegal extension of business from shops.

Hawker management

In the past year, the FEHD continued to take forward the Hawker Assistance Scheme for improving the fire safety and design of hawker stalls in 43 fixed-pitch hawker areas. In 2016, the Department has completed the relocation of all 499 fixed-pitch hawkers whose stalls were situated at building staircase discharge points or places which might obstruct emergency vehicular operations. So far, over 80% of the hawkers have participated in the Scheme, which includes 2,824 hawkers applying for reconstruction grants and 708 hawkers surrendering their licenses for ex-gratia payment.

The FEHD has all along been tolerant of handling illegal hawking activities. In view of the public concern over food safety and environmental hygiene, our staff will continue to take enforcement action against illegal hawking of cooked food or restricted food depending on the situation at the scene.

With the successful operation of hawker bazaars in some districts in 2016, we stand ready to facilitate liaison with relevant government departments on the setting up of hawker bazaars at suitable sites supported by relevant District Councils while ensuring that food safety and environmental hygiene will not be compromised.

Improving the operating environment of public markets

The FEHD continued to enhance the operating environment of public markets by improving management, upgrading facilities, providing more flexible mix of trade and carrying out promotional activities. In addition to regular maintenance, the Department started improvement works such as enhancement of fire services installations to 14 markets in 2016. We are also taking forward progressively the installation of air-conditioning in public markets if the projects are supported by tenants, technically feasible and cost-effective.

Cremation and columbaria facilities

Upgrading cremation facilities and increasing the supply of public niches remained the Department's priority tasks in 2016.

Upon completion of the re-provisioning of Cape Collinson Crematorium in December 2015, the cremation capacity and efficiency provided by the Department was further increased. Allocation of around 5,000 remaining new niches at Wo Hop Shek Kiu Tau Road Columbarium Phase V was also completed in March 2016.

To meet the increasing demand for public niches, 24 potential sites in the 18 districts have been identified for columbaria development. In 2016, the Government consulted the Sha Tin District Council, Kwai Tsing District Council, Islands District Council and Tsuen Wan District Council on six sites at Shek Mun, Kwai Yue Street, Kwai Tai Road, Lai Chi Yuen Cemetery, eastern end of Sham Shui Kok Drive and western end of Sham Shui Kok Drive respectively. These six sites can provide a total of about 135,300 new niches.

The Department also stepped up the publicity on "green burial" to promote this sustainable way of handling cremated ashes through various activities including a large-scale publicity event and exhibitions, broadcast of promotional videos and advertising at public transport networks.

The Government has re-introduced the Private Columbaria Bill to the Legislative Council for scrutiny in November 2016 with a view to introducing a licensing regime to regulate the operation of private columbaria.

Mosquito control

In view of the four local Dengue Fever cases and two imported cases of Zika virus infection recorded in Hong Kong in 2016, the Department stayed vigilant and deployed additional anti-mosquito teams to intensify its mosquito prevention and control work. Publicity and education campaigns were also strengthened to remind the public the importance of mosquito control and prevention.

We will continue to cooperate with the District Councils and other stakeholders to step up anti-mosquito actions across the territory.

The above provides a brief outline of our work in 2016. There was no lack of challenges and difficulties while our staff continued to carry out their duties steadfastly and professionally. We regretted the violent acts against our frontline officers in Mong Kok last February. The safety of our staff and the public is always our prime concern. I would like to express my thanks and support for the hard work of all colleagues. In the year ahead, we will continue to work together to provide quality service to the community.

 

Vivian Lau
Director
Food and Environmental Hygiene Department