Council Takes Steps On Seafood Sale Quality
The Nausori Town Council has taken stern steps to discourage selling seafood and aquatic-based food outside the market.
A health audit was conducted in the past week and the council removed all old, rusted freezers used to store fish and seafood by the fish sellers. They did so for food safety reasons.
Council chief executive Anurashika Bari said these vendors chose not to sell from assigned stalls and created health risks by selling from outside.
“This affects the food quality. The seafood is in an undeveloped area, exposed to the sun and dust,” Ms Bari said.
“In addition, it was challenging members of the public to use the corridor and practise social distancing when the corridor is occupied by these sellers.
“Hence, the council mandated all fish, seafood and kai (freshwater mussels) sellers to sell from the assigned stalls.
“The council noted that the fish, seafood, kai section stalls were empty while the sellers were selling from the front corridor.”
Ms Bari said the council created additional spaces along the market loading and unloading zone with tents to accommodate the additional fish, seafood, kai sellers on Saturdays.
She said there was resistance from vendors when enforcing this.
“We have seen a similar trend with other vendors selling inside the market. They prefer to sell from outside, claiming better sales outside than inside the market,” Ms Bari said.
“It defeats the purpose of the council taking an $11 million loan to build the Nausori Market. The council is finding it challenging to meet the market operational and loan obligations.”
