The Tallinn health inspectors are carrying out additional inspections before the Eurovision Song Contest in dining places, which the Eurovision guests are most liable to visit.
According to the Health Protection Inspectorate�s advisor Agnes Jürgens there are dining places in Tallinn that just don�t want to or cannot serve food in accordance to the requirements.
�You can nag at the shashlyk place owners indefinitely, but they still won�t put their kitchens in order,� said Jürgens. �Or they work in top order one day and the next day the situation is worse than before.�
The inspectors of Tallinn Health Protection Inspectorate department have now made a thorough inspection of the caterers in the Haabersti region, along the Paldiski road and the cafés, restaurants, pubs and bars in the centre of the town.
A more thorough inspection has been made of dining places and markets in Kopli, Lasnamäe and Mustamäe. Additional raids have been carried out in the ports, bus-station, airport and railway station as well as on ships. The health protection department�s inspectors say that they had to give instructions on a larger or smaller scale and charge fines in quite a lot of places.
Meat temperature must be measured
The inspectors have started working together with the catering company SSP who will operate in Saku Suurhall and in the tents around it, having to feed thousands of people during a week. From today there are two inspectors on site in Saku Suurhall, who will stay in the territory for the Eurovision-week.
The chef of the company working in Suurhall, Martti Koppel, admitted that the safety and sanitary requirements set for the kitchen and the catering tent are extremely strict. Thus the unloaders of the foodstuff deliveries even have to measure the storage temperatures of the truck containers in which the raw meat was delivered to make sure the meat has not gone off.
�I guess all the dining places between the Tallinn airport and Saku Suurhall are being monitored,� smiles Koppel.
From 5 May Koppel and his two assistants, Indrek Vissak and Reino Ujuk, have to feed up to 700 workers a day, who are being given two meals a day. From next Monday the three will already have to feed thousands of party-guests.
