The Centre for Food Safety is responsible for ensuring that food available for consumption is wholesome, hygienic and safe. We adopt the risk analysis principles promulgated by the World Health Organization (WHO) which consist of three intertwining processes of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. We also emphasize the importance of tripartite relationship between the government, the food trade and the consumers in food safety control.

The Centre also safeguards public health through the control of live food animals. Our main areas of work involve –

• conducting food surveillance at various points of the food chain and taking enforcement actions;
• ensuring pre-packaged food for sale is properly labelled;
• introducing and promoting the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach to ensure food safety;
• conducting risk assessment on food and providing timely information to the public;
• investigating and managing food incidents;
• exercising import control on high-risk food and issuing health certificates for food exports;
• exercising import control on live food animals;
• conducting inspections and tests on live food animals at licensed slaughterhouses and wholesale markets; and
• providing meat inspection services at licensed slaughterhouses.