Of the nearly 10,000 checks that the Federal Food Chain Safety Agency (FAVV) performs on catering operators each year, barely half get a positive test result. This is evidenced by figures requested by Vlaams Belang Chairman and Member of Parliament Tom van Greiken from Self-Employed Minister David Clarenvale (MR). “Especially in Brussels, the results of hygiene inspections are particularly worrying,” says Van Grieken. There is barely a quarter of it.
In 2019 and 2020, FASFC conducted 10,880 and 9,195 hygiene inspections in catering establishments respectively. In both years, only a minority of operators received a positive screening report (44 percent in 2019, 49.7 percent in 2020).
The numbers for 2020 are about the same in Flanders and Wallonia: 52 percent of the cases examined turned out to be in compliance with all the rules, compared to only 26 percent in Brussels. The number of managers who received an official report of serious violations during inspections by the FASFC was 10 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively, in Flanders and Wallonia, while it was 28 per cent in Brussels.
For Van Groet, there is clearly something wrong with the hygiene rules in Brussels restaurants. “It would almost certainly not be helpful that Brussels has a particularly large influx of (snack) business with immigrant business managers who do not know our language well, let alone our food regulations. It would be good if meaningful research could be done on this topic, So that we can tackle problems with an effective focus.”
Minister Clarenval explains in his answer that catering establishments are in principle inspected every four years. The low frequency is once every six years, and the frequency increases once every two years. After an unfavorable examination, one or more examinations are performed in the meantime.
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