Morocco Food Safety Agency Destroys Over 17,000 Tons of Unsafe Products in 2019

In total, 17,641 tons of food products were destroyed or rejected in 2019 by the services of the National Office of Food Safety (ONSSA). This was following 74,799 control operations involving more than 13 million tons of food products, according to an ONSSA press release.

According to the Office’s explanations, the destruction of these products, unfit for consumption, is due to their unknown origin, non-compliance with storage and storage conditions, expiration of the expiration date and non-compliance with labeling.

In detail, ONSSA rejected 11,388 tons of imported products out of more than 8.4 million tons of food products that were inspected. For exports, more than 3 million tons of food products were inspected, resulting in the issuance of 139,845 health and phytosanitary certificates, the same source specifies.

Regarding agricultural products, 136 tons of potatoes and 125 tons of mint were destroyed due to exceeding the authorized pesticide residue levels or the use of pesticides not authorized for use on these plant products. In the same dynamic, ONSSA withdrew 5 active substances used in the composition of pesticides in 2019 and rejected 10 tons of non-compliant pesticides, thus bringing to 48 the number of pesticides withdrawn from the Moroccan market to date.

As for the granting of health authorizations, ONSSA services processed 3,199 applications during the year 2019, and issued 1,157 new authorizations. The inspections for health compliance of the authorized establishments resulted in the suspension of 40 health authorizations and the withdrawal of those granted to 89 establishments.