The Ministry of Industry has announced plans to introduce health and safety standards for coconut vendors, following concerns about potentially hazardous practices.
The initiative is to be spearheaded by the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC).
The move follows recent criticism of the coconut vendors operating under large tents near Newton Industrial Estate, off the Tom Adams Highway in Christ Church. The vendors were accused of leaving tonnes of coconut shells at their workstations, raising concerns about hygiene and waste management.
This site is part of the government’s vending zone programme, which aims to provide roadside vendors with clean and safe spaces to operate.
Speaking on Friday during the closing ceremony of a government event, Minister Marsha Caddle highlighted the need for greater discipline and adherence to scientific standards in the coconut vending sector.
“We want to build a certain level of discipline in learning and it applies everywhere. We’ve been seeing the situation with the coconut vendors,” Caddle said. “This ministry is also the ministry under which the BIDC sits, and the CEO (Mark Hill) and his team have been working very closely with the vendors there to be able to come up with a protocol. Now, that’s just the BIDC component; the vendors’ market component is another ministry. But we’ve been working with them to establish certain standards. In everything, you need scientific standards.”
She stressed that coconut vending involves more than meets the eye, noting that certain practices could pose health risks.
“Sometimes we see things and we think, okay, well, this is vending coconuts, there’s no science here, but there is,” Caddle explained. “The reason the tents were removed, for example, is that bacteria was building up in the roof of the tent because some of the blades that they’re using contribute to that. One of the standards that we need to establish is for them to use stainless steel blades. That’s low-hanging fruit, that’s an easy fix, but science helps us to understand it.”
She added that the goal is to encourage vendors to adopt best practices that can reduce health risks, such as the use of stainless steel blades.
Caddle said: “We’re working with the gentlemen to let them understand that the stainless steel blade, when you cut your coconut with that, reduces the propensity to make people ill. These are the kinds of things that we want to inculcate by applying standards to everything we do.”
(SZB)
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