The food industry is far more lucrative than other businesses; therefore fraudulent practices are more common in food products, said Dr. Ali Akbar Sayari, deputy minister of health, adding: “among all food items the biggest scams are related to organic foods, since there are no set rules to control this segment of the industry.”
Consuming unsafe food can cause over 200 diseases ranging from diarrhea to various forms of cancer, Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying.
Sayari said there are plans to improve the quality of restaurants in the country and out of the 23,000 restaurants, 4500 were evaluated in terms of hygiene and environmental standards as well as food safety. “We are planning to grade restaurants based on food hygiene and health. The healthiest restaurants will be given a ‘three apple’ symbol and restaurants with lower quality will receive two and one ‘healthy apple’. If a restaurant receives a poor health grade, it will not bear any symbol,” he said.
