Yearly Archives: 2015

Georgia restaurant fails second inspection

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Gasthaus Tirol, a German restaurant in Cumming, recently posted its second consecutive failing health score on a routine inspection.

Gasthaus TirolThe Forsyth County inspector said employees were eating and tasting food without washing hands before putting on gloves, and the dishes were not being properly cleaned.

In other violations, dishes were being pre-washed in the vegetable sink. Also, they were not being cleaned properly. Old date marking stickers were not removed. And the inspector said the dishwasher had no measurable amount of sanitizing solution.

Dining tables were also not sanitized correctly, the inspector said. And the meat slicer had an accumulation of food debris.

So sorry: plastic pieces found in Japanese McNuggets

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McDonald’s Japan is facing yet another food safety scandal after two customers found pieces of plastic in their Chicken McNuggets.

The first discovery, made on Saturday, spurred McDonald’s Japan to pull all 956,925 nuggets made by a Cargill unit in Thailand on the same day, in the same factory.

Chicken-McNuggets-Japan-jpgDespite the preventative action, another customer reported finding plastic inside a chicken nugget on Monday. McDonald’s is investigating, but has not yet said if the two incidents are related.

“We deeply apologize for the trouble we have caused our customers and we are taking quick measures to analyze the cause of the contamination,” said company spokesman Takashi Hasegasa.

The incidents are the latest in a string of food scares that have shaken Japanese consumer confidence in McDonald’s.

Among other incidents, a human tooth was found in a customer’s french fry in August, while a child in December cut his mouth on a piece of plastic that was in a chocolate sundae.

Last July, the company was among several fast food chains to be hit by a scandal involving tainted meat from a Chinese supplier.

Sales at McDonald’s Japan have dropped more than 10 percent every month compared to the same period last year since the food scare hit, even after the company switched to suppliers in Thailand. The company has said it expects to post a net loss for its current fiscal year — the first annual loss in 11 years — as a result.

China regulator to strengthen ‘grim’ food, drug safety control

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Food and drug safety in China is “grim” and will get stronger oversight, the food and drug regulator said on Wednesday, after a series of scares last year hit the reputations of global firms such as McDonald’s Corp and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Grim_ReaperThe China Food and Drug Administration has struggled to control a string of high-profile scandals over the years, from donkey meat products tainted with fox, heavy metals in baby food and allegations of expired meat sold to fast-food chains.

“We must soberly recognise the current foundations of China’s food and drug safety are still weak, with new and old risks together creating a grim situation,” the regulator said in a statement on its website after a meeting in Beijing this week.

China will increase “active” regulation to prevent food and drug safety scares, with more on-site inspections, random tests and unannounced visits, the regulator said. The quality of personnel, legal structures, management methods and technological aspects were all currently insufficient, it said.

Winnipeg restaurant closures due to dishwasher problems

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Winnipeg or, The ‘peg, as it’s known in some hoser circles has been cracking down on food safety in restaurants with fifteen health inspection-related closures since June. According to the Winnipeg Free Press poor cleaning and sanitizing have been a common theme in the closures.winnipeg

Mike LeBlanc, Manitoba Health’s chief public health inspector, said it’s one reason why when inspectors fan out across Winnipeg and the province to check out the more than 9,000 eating establishments, one of the items on their checklist is whether the dishwasher is heating and sanitizing properly.

“They need to get at least to 71 C — 65 or 68 might not be killing cold or flu viruses on the edge of a glass, so they have to be 71 C,” LeBlanc said (I’d be much more worried about noro -ben).

“And as for sanitizing, they can get chlorine test strips, but many times restaurants don’t use them. But for cases we find, it may just be bad luck on their part that it stopped working a day or two before we got there.”

Two restaurants were closed temporarily in the second half of 2014 by health inspectors because their dishwashers weren’t functioning properly.

They’re just two of the 15 restaurants that were closed for health violations since the last health-protection report was issued in June. In total, 24 restaurants were temporarily closed during the year for health violations.

“We’re there to keep an eye open for the public because they are not allowed into the back kitchen,” LeBlanc said.

“We are out there looking for things and protecting the public’s health, between what we do and the diligence of the restaurant community.”

Salmonella risk? Shop owner hit employees with bearded dragon lizard

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A Florida man was arrested after authorities say he swung a bearded dragon lizard around his head and struck employees with the animal.

bearded_dragon_picBenjamin Herman Siegel, owner of Siegel Reptiles in South Florida, was caught Friday on video putting a bearded dragon lizard in his mouth, throwing the animal in the air and swinging the animal around his head multiple times, according to a Broward County Sheriff’s Office police report.

He was charged with two counts of battery and animal cruelty.

The police report said Siegel, 40, also hit employees multiple times with the dragon and threw Gatorade on them.

Why wait for government? Mechanically tenderized meat labels delayed in US until at least 2018

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The best food providers don’t wait for – or hide behind — government.

That’s why Costco already labels meat that is mechanically or needle tenderized.

needle.tenderize.crOther retailers should do the same.

For those waiting for government, a labeling rule which would require packages to provide cooking instructions for the mechanically tenderized meat, had to be finalized by Dec. 31 in order for it to take effect before 2018 under separate requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Philip Brasher writes in Agri-Pulse that FSIS first proposed the labeling for mechanically tenderized meat in June 2013 out of concern that consumers aren’t cooking the meat properly to eliminate pathogens. The meat is tenderized with knives and needles that can drive bacteria inside the product.

However, the meat industry strongly opposes the labeling requirement and USDA officials did not send the final rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review until Nov. 21. The regulation remains pending at OMB. Under FSIS labeling regulations, the labeling rule could have taken effect as soon as 2016 only if it had been cleared by OMB and approved by USDA by Dec. 31.

The meat industry has argued that the meat doesn’t pose a significant risk and that the special cooking instructions aren’t warranted. In comments filed with FSIS in October 2013, the American Meat Institute said that antimicrobial measures instituted by processors assure that the meat is safe.

The Costco label says the meat should be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Corbo said the final FSIS rule is likely to offer consumers an option to the 160-degree minimum: Cook the meat to 145 degrees and let it stand for least three minutes. The meat will continue to cook internally for the three minutes even though it is no longer on the heat source. 

Nine people choke to death eating rice cakes in Japan

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Japan’s habitual New Year killer has struck again, after nine people were reported to have died in recent days from choking on rice cakes.

mochiMochi – glutinous cakes of pounded rice – are traditionally eaten in vast quantities over the holidays, usually in soup, or toasted and served with sweet soy sauce and wrapped in dried seaweed.

Several people die eating the starchy delicacy every January, but this year the number is particularly high.

Local media reported that nine people had died over the holidays, while 13 others were in a serious condition in hospital. 

From the Salmonella in low moisture foods file: Aldi recalls Choceur Treasures chocolate

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Last weekend I taught Jack and Sam about Salmonella contamination in low moisture foods like chocolate – through the somewhat creepy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Early on in the golden ticket winners visit, Augustus Gloop (which is also a decent band name) falls into the factory’s open chocolate river. Knowing that Salmonella is hearty, especially when stressed in a low moisture environment, and that the chocolate didn’t have a post-river kill step, Wonka yells ‘ You are dirtying my chocolate!’.10881542_733085970120889_7656214917050489571_n

In related news, a UK retailer, Aldi, is according to The Telegraph, recalling chocolate due to Salmonella contamination.

Aldi, the discount supermarket, is recalling packs of chocolate after salmonella was detected in a batch. The Food Standards Agency has issued a product recall notice for 200g Choceur Treasures with a best before date of Sept 1. The bacteria was found in a batch of the product that has been on sale in Aldi stores in the Midlands region. The chocolates – a whole hazelnut wrapped in waffle and milk chocolate – at the centre of the scare have been on sale in around 100 stores. Locations if shops include Birmingham, Worcester, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry and Grantham.

Maybe someone fell into their chocolate river.

Kansas prisons yield repeat food safety violations

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Dirty kitchen conditions and violations repeated for several months are among some of the more consistent findings in food safety inspections for Kansas prisons.

o.brother.prisonAlthough the corrections department adheres to Kansas Department of Agriculture food safety guidelines, like restaurants, it doesn’t rely on KDA staff to do the inspections.

Instead, both monthly and sporadic audits are conducted by Kansas Department of Corrections employees, some of whom work in the facilities they inspect.

“I hear what you’re saying in terms of looking like it’s all under one DOC umbrella,” said Jeremy Barclay, spokesman for the KDOC. “But we interact with so many different state agencies and branches of government and different divisions within the agency, that it’s pretty secure.”

The inspections cover the 19 months between January 2013 and July 2014. They include seven of the state’s 10 prisons and total 19 facilities, such as satellite units. The KDOC filled the request free of charge, because another entity already had requested the inspections. Inspections weren’t provided for the Topeka, Lansing and Larned juvenile correctional facilities because they weren’t in the original request.

blues.brothers.jailhouse-rockThe nearly 340 inspections show noncompliance and deficiencies month after month at several facilities.

The Kansas Juvenile Correctional Facility in Topeka, for example, repeated several mistakes for at least 10 months, including not taking proper temperature logs; not enforcing handwashing and glove use; not having employees and staff restrain hair properly; not keeping accurate chemical logs; and not having inmate staff up to date on food safety training.

Aramark holds the food service contracts in all the prisons, save the KJCF, which switched last October to Trinity Services Group after the service went out for bid. It was awarded a nearly $400,000 contract to work from October 2013 through June 2014.

In each prison, Aramark pays for a manager, an assistant manager and food service supervisors. Under them, are the inmates, Barclay said.

Inmate workers are supposed to be trained and supervised, but 20 inspections show those areas lacking for several months — half of which came from the KJCF.

Meathead: thermometers and food safety

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After picking up a piece about Meathead Goldwyn and his science-based approach to cooking on AmazingRibs.com – it involves a thermometer – the man himself contacted me and shared a few resources which are worth passing along.

backlit_thermapenFirst is a comprehensive review of almost 100 thermometers, mostly digital. You can use the search options at left or scroll down to see some of our favorites. The options can be confusing so you might first want to click here to read more about how thermometers work and why some are better than others.

Second is a database of food safety tips. Both are great.