Monthly Archives: March 2014

A guy ate a cockroach sandwich, so he’s waging Twitter war against a Canadian Subway

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After allegedly finding a cockroach in his sandwich at a Subway franchise in Sudbury, Ontario, Patrick Balfour took to Twitter to voice his complaints against the sandwich giant. He’s sparing no expense in the process: He even bought two anti-Subway promoted tweets for $90. His story is a testament to the power of social media to affect sweeping change—or the power of a near-obsessive-compulsive desire to shame a sandwich chain, either one.

Balfour’s Subway saga began 11 months ago, when he contacted @SubwayOntario via Twitter to complain about finding the critter in his sandwich (a turkey footlong on Italian subway-sandwich-in-handherb and cheese bread).

He didn’t have a photo of the sandwich. “I was [disgusted] and got rid of the sub as soon as possible,” he said in an email. “I never thought it would drag on this long or that I’d ever need a photo of a dead cockroach.” But after sending a few tweets to @SubwayOntario, the company eventually responded, asking for Balfour’s contact info. When they failed to follow up with him after 10 days, he reached out again and they responded with the same message.

For a while, Balfour forgot about the cockroach incident, until @SubwayCanada launched a promotional initiative on Twitter. He decided to use their new advertising campaign as an opportunity to contact them again:

SUBWAY CANADA: More than great sandwiches, follow SUBWAY®Canada today!

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada I found a cockroach in my sub. I spoke with someone from ‪@SubwayOntario & they said someone would be in touch. Never happened

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@mike_check_2012 ‪@SUBWAYCanada I wasn’t paying attention and it was dead. I thought it was a black olive at first until I saw the legs

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada ‪@SubwayOntario no response??? Awesome!

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada ‪@SubwayOntario a Why are you ignoring my tweets? You’d think that if I found a cockroach in my sub you might want to reach out

Like before, he received a perfunctory response:

SUBWAY CANADA: ‪@patrickbalfour ‪@SubwayOntario We’re sorry to hear this! Plz reach out to our Customer Care team at 1-800-888-4848 or http://bit.ly/1iA8MQV

“I called [the line], even though I thought that was a horrible response,” he told me. “What I got was a 24 hour voice mail. Now I was mad!”

Enraged by the subpar customer service, Balfour promoted the following tweet:

PATRICK BALFOUR: I found a dead cockroach in my sub which I bought in Ontario. This tweet is being promoted! Do you care now ‪@SubwayCanada? ‪#Subway

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@draxapup ‪@SUBWAYCanada if they have twitter available to engage with their customers they should solve their problems. Not very smart!

Pennsylvania funeral director dismayed by court ruling reinstating food ban

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“I drove down your road

to Hazeldean where I tasted

greasy.jungle.hipyour funeral home’s sandwiches and coffee

I saw your hands melt into one another

I saw you grieve and grow

care a lot about one another”

Greasy Jungle, 1994, Tragically Hip

A federal judge has ordered no more food service at Pennsylvania funeral homes.

The food ban at Pennsylvania funeral homes was instituted in 1952 out of food safety concerns.  Then, in 2012, a federal judge deemed the earlier ruling unconstitutional.

Now, a federal appeals court has reversed the reversal, once again banning food at funeral homes in the commonwealth.

Chad Snyder, director of Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home in Lancaster, Pa. says he’s baffled and  disappointed by the ruling.

“There are many other places that would come to the conclusion of health hazards,” he said today.  “I mean, retirement communities, hospitals — they also provide food service.”

He says it was an ancillary service that gave comfort to families.

Prevalence of shiga-toxin producing E. coli, Salmonella enterica, and Listeria monocytogenes

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There’s a lot of STECs out there.

Cooley et al report in Frontiers that, produce contaminated with enteric pathogens is a major source of foodborne illness in the United States. Lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds were sampled with Moore swabs bi-monthly for over 2 years at 30 locations in the vicinity of a leafy green growing region on the Central California Coast and screened for Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Salmonella enterica, and Listeria monocytogenes lettuceto evaluate the prevalence and persistence of pathogen subtypes. The prevalence of STEC from 1386 samples was 11%; 110 samples (8%) contained E. coli O157:H7 with the highest prevalence occurring close to cattle operations. Non-O157 STEC isolates represented major clinical O-types and 57% contained both shiga toxin types 1 and 2 and intimin. Multiple Locus Variable Number Tandem Repeat Analysis of STEC isolates indicated prevalent strains during the period of study. Notably, Salmonella was present at high levels throughout the sampling region with 65% prevalence in 1405 samples resulting in 996 isolates with slightly lower prevalence in late autumn. There were 2, 8, and 14 sites that were Salmonella-positive over 90, 80, and 70% of the time, respectively. The serotypes identified most often were 6,8:d:-, Typhimurium, and Give. Interestingly, analysis by Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis indicated persistence and transport of pulsotypes in the region over several years. In this original study of L. monocytogenes in the region prevalence was 43% of 1405 samples resulting in 635 individual isolates. Over 85% of the isolates belonged to serotype 4b with serotypes 1/2a, 1/2b, 3a, 4d with 4e representing the rest, and there were 12 and 2 sites that were positive over 50 and 80% of the time, respectively. Although surface water is not directly used for irrigation in this region, transport to the produce can occur by other means. This environmental survey assesses initial contamination levels toward an understanding of transport leading to produce recalls or outbreaks. 

Fancy food ain’t safe food; Thomas Keller’s Per Se has a ‘grade pending’

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According to a recent inspection by the new York City Department of Health on Feb. 19, Per Se has enough violations to warrant a C grade. Currently, the restaurant has a ‘Grade Pending’ health rating, which will be subject to two more follow-up inspections for an improved grade. 

Eater reports that during the restaurant’s previous inspection, the restaurant received five critical violations, a few of which were likely related to the restaurant’s sous vide stations.

This time, Per Se was hit with 42 violation points, although the DOH reveals that this is the third time Keller’s restaurant has received more than 40 violation points. The restaurant per.sereceived five critical sanitary violation points for not holding hot food at or above 140 degrees, holding cold food items above 41 degrees, not providing a hand-washing facility near the food preparation area, an employee eating, drinking, or smoking in a food preparation area, and not providing clean wiping cloths for staff.

68 sick; 5-year-old’s death linked to Salmonella in Malaysia

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Five-year-old Muhammad Iqbal Rafie Mohd Ilme of Malaysia died from Salmonella while being taken to seek treatment at a hospital.

“He had suffered acute dehydration, he had been vomiting and had diarrhoea since March 1 after consuming food which had been bought at the night market in Kuala UnknownTerengganu,” said State Health director Datuk Dr Anwa Sulaiman.

68 other victims are still being treated at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital.

From that number, 18 of them are children.

The State Department had also confirmed that the victims fell ill after consuming four types of food which was sold at the Dataran Syahbandar night market between February 28 and March 1.

“All the victims had consumed these four types of food which was sold at the Dataran Syahbandar or Padang Hiliran night market which included white fried rice, red fried rice, fried kuey tioe and fried noodles,” he said.

481 sick; dozens more stricken in Foster Farms salmonella outbreak

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Lynne Terry of The Oregonian reports that while federal officials declared the salmonella outbreak tied to Foster Farms chicken over in mid-January at 430 cases, dozens of new illness have been confirmed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that officials in five states had tracked 51 new cases since Jan. 16: Arizona (3), California (44), Hawaii (1), Tennessee (1) and Utah (2).

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in the update that federal officials detected one of the outbreak strains of Salmonella Heidelberg in raw chicken wings purchased at a pinto.explodingstore on Jan. 27. It did not name the store. A number of states, including Oregon, are participating in a federal program designed to track the development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria by buying meat in grocery stores and running tests. That program is how Oregon has tracked Foster Farms salmonella outbreaks for a decade.

In the update on this this current outbreak, the CDC said one of the strains was found in raw chicken from the home of an ill person. Officials do not know whether that chicken had been stored for a long time in the freezer.

Foster Farms has not recalled any of the suspect chicken, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not ask for one.

However USDA officials told The Oregonian on Monday that Foster Farms had reduced contamination at the three plants in California implicated in the outbreak. In January, the Foster-Farms-Chicken-BreastUSDA closed one of them, in Livingston, Calif., for more than two weeks over “egregious” unsanitary conditions traced to cockroaches.

When the plant reopened, Foster Farms adopted antimicrobial interventions to cut contamination. The officials said those interventions are working, with the three plants averaging far less than 25 percent contamination, an industry average for salmonella on raw chicken parts.

“Foster Farms is performing far better than the industry average,” an official said.

The Pinto defense.

Effects of post-harvest handling conditions on internalization and growth of Salmonella Enterica in tomatoes

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Journal of Food Protection®, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 352-521 , pp. 365-370(6)

Zhou, Bin; Luo, Yaguang; Nou, Xiangwu; Yang, Yang; Wu, Yunpeng; Wang, Qin

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2014/00000077/00000003/art00003

Salmonella internalization in tomatoes during postharvest handling is a major food safety concern. This study was conducted to determine the effect of immersion time, immersion depth, and temperature differential between bacterial suspension and tomato pulp on the internalization of Salmonella enterica in tomato fruits. The effect of storage temperature and tomato.dump.tankduration on the survival and growth of internalized Salmonella cells was also evaluated. Overall, immersion time significantly affected the incidence and extent of S. enterica internalization (P < 0.0001), with a linear correlation between immersion time and Salmonella internalization. The depth of Salmonella internalization in tomato tissues also increased with increasing immersion time. Immersion time also significantly influenced the degree to which the temperature differential affected Salmonella internalization. With an immersion time of 2 min, the temperature differential had no significant effect on Salmonella internalization (P = 0.2536). However, with an immersion time of 15 min, a significantly larger Salmonella population became internalized in tomatoes immersed in solutions with a –30°F (–16.7°C) temperature differential. Internalized S. enterica cells persisted in the core tissues during 14 days of storage. Strain type and storage duration significantly affected (P < 0.05) both the frequency detected and the population of internalized Salmonella recovered, but storage temperatures of 55 to 70°F (12.8 to 21.1°C) did not (P > 0.05). These findings indicate the importance of preventing pathogen internalization during postharvest handling.

 

Evaluating E. coli O157 control in Finnish primary production

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Journal of Food Protection®, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 352-521 , pp. 371-379(9)

Leimi, Anna; Mikkelä, Antti; Tuominen, Pirkko

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2014/00000077/00000003/art00004

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) has become a threat in the modern cattle sector because of its adverse impact on human health. Systems have been developed to reduce the risk of EHEC infection associated with the beef production chain. In Finland, the risk management of EHEC is mainly targeted at primary production, which is controlled by a national program. The prevalence of E. coli O157 in slaughter animals and herds finnish-04appears to have remained relatively low over the years (0.2 to1.2% and 0.3 to 1.5%, respectively). The effectiveness of the Finnish EHEC control program (FECP) was analyzed with a Bayesian statistical model based on the results from 2006 through 2010. According to the model, the estimated true prevalence of EHEC in slaughter animals was at its highest in 2007 (95% credible interval [CI], 0.94 to 1.85% of animals), and the estimated true prevalence in herds was its highest in 2007 (95% CI, 1.28 to 2.55% of herds). However, the estimated probability of the FECP detecting an EHEC-positive slaughter animal or herd was 0.52 to 0.58% and 4.74 to 6.49%, respectively. The inability to detect EHEC-positive animals was partly due to animal-based random sampling, which ignores herd-level testing and therefore emphasizes the testing of slaughter animals from herds that send more animals to slaughter. Some slaughterhouses collected samples incorrectly as a consequence of an incorrectly implemented FECP. Farmers may also have questionable reasons for choosing to send animals to be slaughtered in small abattoirs, in which testing is less likely, to avoid suspicion of EHEC or other zoonotic infections.

Pathogens in produce, Netherlands edition

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The Dutch have decided to estimate pathogens in their produce in two Journal of Food Protection papers.

Prevalence and concentration of bacterial pathogens in raw produce and minimally processed packaged salads produced in and for the Netherlands

Journal of Food Protection®, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 352-521 , pp. 388-394(7)

Wijnands, Lucas M.; Delfgou-van Asch, Ellen H. M.; Beerepoot-Mensink, Marieke E.; van der Meij-Florijn, Alice; Fitz-James, Ife; van Leusden, Frans M.; Pielaat, Andannemarie

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2014/00000077/00000003/art00006

Recent outbreaks with vegetable or fruits as vehicles have raised interest in the characterization of the public health risk due to microbial contamination of these commodities. Because qualitative and quantitative data regarding prevalence and concentration of various microbes are lacking, we conducted a survey to estimate the prevalence and contamination level of raw produce and the resulting minimally processed packaged salads as sold in The Netherlands. A dedicated sampling plan accounted for the amount of processed produce in relation to the amount of products, laboratory lettuce.skull.e.coli.O145capacity, and seasonal influences. Over 1,800 samples of produce and over 1,900 samples of ready-to-eat mixed salads were investigated for Salmonella enterica serovars, Campylobacter spp., Escherichia coli O157, and Listeria monocytogenes. The overall prevalence in raw produce varied between 0.11% for E. coli O157 and L. monocytogenes and 0.38% for Salmonella. Prevalence point estimates for specific produce/pathogen combinations ranged for Salmonella from 0.53% in iceberg lettuce to 5.1% in cucumber. For Campylobacter, this ranged from 0.83% in endive to 2.7% in oak tree lettuce. These data will be used to determine the public health risk posed by the consumption of ready-to-eat mixed salads in The Netherlands.

Microbiological risk from minimally processed packaged salads in the Dutch food chain

1.Mar.14

Journal of Food Protection®, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 352-521 , pp. 395-403(9)

Pielaat, Annemarie; van Leusden, Frans M.; Wijnands, Lucas M

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2014/00000077/00000003/art00007

The objective of this study was to evaluate the microbial hazard associated with the consumption of mixed salads produced under standard conditions. The presence of Salmonella, Campylobacter spp., and Escherichia coli O157 in the Dutch production chain of mixed salads was determined. Microbial prevalence and concentration data from a microbiological surveillance study were used as inputs for the quantitative microbial risk assessment. Chain logistics, production figures, and consumption patterns were combined with the survey data for the risk assessment chain approach. The results of the sample analysis were used to track events from contamination through human illness. Wide 95% confidence intervals around the mean were found for estimated annual numbers of illnesses resulting from the consumption of mixed salads contaminated with Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 (0 to 10,300 cases), Campylobacter spp. (0 to 92,000 cases), or E. coli (0 to 800 cases). The main sources of uncertainty are the lack of decontamination data (i.e., produce washing during processing) and an appropriate dose-response relationship.

Clenbuterol: vet drug not just for elite athletes any more

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Clenbuterol was never just for elite athletes, veterinarians could get it whenever they wanted.

But the Gold Coast Bulletin, the number one source for surf news in Australia, reports that bodybuilders, athletes and slimmers are misusing a livestock drug, putting them at risk of Clenbuterol.before.afterserious health problems.

Research reveals the use of veterinary drug clenbuterol has spread from elite athletes to the general public.

A rising number of Australians are calling poison hotlines with racing hearts, nausea, vomiting, tremors and anxiety.

There has also been one ­reported cardiac arrest in a young man linked to the drug.

Clenbuterol is predominantly used to treat respiratory illnesses in horses and, in some countries, it’s still used illegally to increase lean meat in food-producing animals.

Many Gold Coasters, striving to get the perfectly lean body, are using Clenbuterol with it relatively easy to access on the black market through gyms.

The study by the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s Dr Jonathan Brett and researchers from the NSW Poisons Information Centre found 63 calls for help about the drug from 2004-2009.

Most patients were using it for slimming and bodybuilding and had to be hospitalized.

The performance-enhancing drug made headlines when it was popular among elite ­athletes, with cyclist Alberto Contador and sprinter Katrin Krabbe receiving bans.

In humans, it’s used to boost aerobic capacity, the body’s ability to transport oxygen and metabolize fat.