Yearly Archives: 2015

Tennessee man finds $10 bill is bagged salad

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Kyle Hubbard bought a bagged salad at a Target in Cordova, Tennessee, and found another green item among the lettuce — a $10 bill.

moneylettuce_croppedHubbard purchased the Fresh Express 50/50 Mix on October 21, which contains baby spinach and spring mix. He was concerned that the $10 bill might have contaminated other salads before they were bagged.

 “You’ve seen some salad tainted with E. coli and listeria and those are germs and that’s hard to see,” Hubbard told WMC Action News 5. “But when it’s a more blatant object that’s clearly visible, it’s quite concerning how that made it outside the doors of that facility.”

Target’s corporate offices were notified of this incident.

“At Target, we take food quality very seriously,” a spokesperson told WMC Action News 5. “I have shared the information with our team and would encourage you to reach out to Fresh Express directly.”

Target also offered Hubbard $24 worth of coupons, but he declined. It is unclear whether he kept the $10 bill or not.

Snake in Ocean Spray cranberry sauce triggers CFIA probe

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Snake bites are common in Queensland this time of year. A four-year-old girl was flown to hospital yesterday after she was bitten on the toe by what was thought to be a baby python inside her home. The incident followed a spate of snakebites across the state last Sunday, one of which claimed the life of a far north Queensland grandfather.

205237-545470d4-7d03-11e5-af42-a02bd40851beBut in a can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce?

Aimee Casciato of St. Catharines (Ontario, that’s in Canada) posted photos on social media, sharing the not-so-delightful surprise she found as her family sat down to dinner.

“The kids are grossed out. My eight-year-old said, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to eat anything from a can again,'” she told CHCH news.

When Casciato contacted Ocean Spray, the company offered her a $10 coupon, and then a rebate after she rejected the first offer, she said.

“I said ‘are you kidding me?’ I’m not really interested in buying your product anymore.”

While the creature has been sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Ocean Spray told CTV News they’re also working with officials to determine precisely what happened.

ive-had-it-with-these-motherloving-snakes-2-3412-1445971581-2_big“This is an isolated incident and all products currently in stores or in homes remain safe to consume,” spokesperson Kellyanne Dignan said.

The creature, which has been identified by the Little Rays Reptile Zoo as a garter snake, can be found in just about any environment, such as marshes, fields and forests, according to Canadian Geographic.

In an ice machine too: Roach infestation forces closure of A-rated Carl’s Jr. in Calif.

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Kern health officials, acting on a customer complaint, have shut down a Bakersfield Carl’s Jr. restaurant because of a cockroach infestation observed months ago by a county inspector who nevertheless issued the fast-food place an “A” rating.

carl's jrThe corporate-owned restaurant on Real Road south of California Avenue was found Monday to be harboring a “severe” infestation, with numerous cockroaches alive and dead, as well as insect eggs, feces and a multi-generational population suggesting roaches were breeding at the site, county environmental health Director Donna Fenton said.

“When we see that type of infestation, our concern is that they can contaminate food contact surfaces, utensils, food packaging — they can even get into the food itself,” said Fenton, who added the county typically closes a couple of restaurants every year because of cockroach infestations.

When the county visited the same Carl’s Jr. July 9, its inspector noted a “vermin infestation” evident by live roaches in the grill area and in an ice machine, among other lesser violations, according to a county report posted online.

cockroach.burgerThe facility earned a score of 91 percent, not as good as the 93.5 percent it received in March but better than its 90 percent score from Dec. 30. In each case the restaurant won an “A” grade, based on its overall points tally.

Fenton said the infestation the county observed in July was not seen as overly problematic because the restaurant had been treated by pest control specialists the night before, and it appeared the roaches were dying. Also, the report asserted the infestation was confined to a limited area.

The county went out again Monday after a customer reported seeing a cockroach on a wall of the restaurant, among other violations, Fenton said.

The restaurant will stay closed until its owner, Carpinteria-based CKE Restaurants Inc., finishes what Fenton called a “deep cleaning,” including steam-cleaning, sealing of cracks and other maintenance. She said the location won’t be allowed to reopen until after it passes a county re-inspection.

CKE declined to answer questions including what had been done to prevent and then address the infestation reported in July. The company issued this written statement: “The health and safety of our customers and employees is always our top priority. We took immediate action to deal with this situation and expect to re-open the location very soon.”

Douglas Powell, a former professor of food safety at Kansas State University who now publishes articles on the subject at barfblog.com, said cockroaches can carry dangerous bacteria and viruses, and that it is the responsibilities of restaurant operators, not government agencies, to ensure food safety. He cautioned against putting too much faith in government inspection reports, which he said represent ”a snapshot in time.“

”Cockroaches are going to be around,“ he said. ”It’s up to the restaurant to take steps to mitigate that.“

And everyone has a camera.

Blame consumers: Unpasteurized cider edition

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As a Michigan cider mill became the latest to have its product test positive for Shiga-toxin producing E. coli, a statement has emerged from the owners of the California state cider producer linked to at least seven E. coli O157 illnesses.

high.hill.ciderJerry & Michelle Visman, the owners of High Hill Ranch, in the community of Camino in El Dorado County wrote:

“It was recently brought to our attention by the health department that in mid-October, some people reported getting sick after visiting our ranch. We are very sorry for this. There is some speculation that it may have been caused by drinking the apple juice.

We have always offered free samples at our juice-making facility, so that the people could try the juice before buying it.

Unfortunately, hundreds of people touch the filler nozzle everyday to fill the sample cups. With so many people getting sick this time of the year this very well could have spread a virus to the sample jug. We regret that for health concerns, the free samples will have to discontinue.

 We are also having the juice tested as a precaution to make absolutely sure all is well, because after making juice for 50 years and not having any complaints, we want to make sure that the good track record continues.”

It’s a bacterium, not a virus, and why were you letting hundreds of people touch the juice noozle everyday?

In Michigan, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development issued a consumer advisory for Uncle John’s Old Fashioned Apple Cider produced by Uncle John’s Cider Mill located at 8614 US-127 in St. Johns, MI, because it has the potential to be contaminated. Consumers who have purchased this product at Uncle John’s Cider Mill are urged not to consume it and dispose of the product immediately.

Uncle John’s Old Fashioned Apple CiderA routine, random sample collected by an MDARD food inspector tested positive for Shiga-toxin producing E. coli by the department’s Geagley Laboratory. No illnesses have been reported to date. Uncle John’s has voluntarily ceased sales of cider awaiting further test results.

This advisory affects approximately 1,200 gallons of cider produced on October 17. The cider was sold at the cider mill from the retail cooler, packaged in various sized plastic jugs with a sell by date of October 30, 2015; or served directly to consumers by the cup as cold cider, frozen cider slushes and hot cider, from October 18 through October 21. 

Sushi safety: Celebrated chef vs. NYC health department

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Last week, New York City’s Department of Health closed the popular, acclaimed East Village restaurant Sushi Dojo. The reasons, according to the official report and a statement provided by the DOH, were “a combination of bare hand contact and food out of temperature.”

sushi.dojoThe following day, the restaurant’s Gansevoort Market offshoot, Sushi Dojo Express, was also closed. Somewhat surprisingly, in a statement provided to Eater, Dojo chef David Bouhadana — whose third restaurant, Dojo Izakaya, is still open — wrote that he was closed because of “BS rule, a rule I don’t stand by. Sushi is being ruined [by] gloves, freezing fish and more issues.”

Grub called the chef to talk about what exactly happened, what he’s going to do about it, and why he feels he’s being targeted (an edited version is below — dp).

So, what happened?
The Department of Health, let’s put it this way, the DOH has their rules and their laws, and it is what it is. For sushi, there’s always been a gray area as far as fish, rice, temperatures — everything, really. The rule that applies to me and applies to Taco Bell is no bare-hand contact with raw food.
In sushi, we’re taught to be clean, hygienic, and professional. If you are a clean chef, you don’t need gloves. When a health inspector walks in, we all have our code word, we all have our drill: Put the gloves on, smile to the inspector, they walk in, they walk out. You’re good for six months. The problem is my restaurant is designed so when you first walk in you see me, and through the windows you can see me. But this wasn’t an issue before. Sushi Yasuda has open windows. Sushi Nakazawa has open windows. Every sushi bar has open windows.

When did it become an issue then?
The tipping point came when the inspector told me to throw food away in front of my customers. When an inspector walks into a restaurant, like Eleven Madison Park or wherever, they’re in the kitchen. Nobody knows they’re there. When you walk into my restaurant, I am positioned front and the center.
… This is not a disgusting restaurant. There’s no feces, there’s no vomit, there’s no bacteria (wow, that must be something – dp), there’s no sign of any kind of health-hazardous anything. This is a personal issue. I’ve been talking to a lot of sushi chefs for years now, and right now it’s a huge moment, and of course everyone is behind me, but no one really wants me to use their name or get involved in controversy. But, well, what do we do?

Philadelphia: Ingredients not on menu

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The Philadelphia Inquirer continues its efforts to improve restaurant inspection disclosure in the City of Brotherly Love.

smiley.faces.denmark.rest.inspectionThe Philadelphia Department of Public Health keeps its restaurant inspection reports secret for 30 days, unnecessarily risking the health of unsuspecting diners at restaurants with serious hygiene problems.

Philadelphia’s is the only health department in the nation’s 10 largest cities that has such an asinine policy, as Philly.com reported last week. Phoenix takes 72 hours to process its reports and make them public, while the rest – including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles – publish them immediately.

Within Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh also posts inspection reports immediately. So do Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester Counties. Across the Delaware, Camden and Burlington Counties post the information online within five days. A metropolis like Philadelphia should be able to keep up.

qr.code.rest.inspection.gradeA health department spokesman told Philly.com that sanitation reports are kept confidential for a month to give establishments time to challenge them. It’s fine to allow restaurants to appeal inspectors’ findings, but not at the expense of diners who deserve to know if a restaurant’s cleanliness has been questioned. Besides, there have been only four such appeals since 2009.

The 30-day grace period is too long. It suggests that the health department lacks confidence in its inspectors’ ability to evaluate sanitary conditions. If that is the case, then rather than err on the side of a restaurant that may have a rat or roach problem, the department should improve its inspectors’ skills and reduce the possibility of inaccurate assessments.

The department’s website (www.phila.gov/health/foodprotection/FoodSafetyReports.html) notes that every inspection report is a “snapshot” that “may not be representative of the overall, long-term sanitation and safety status of an establishment.” That’s an important caveat. But it doesn’t mean that having carefully cultivated a reputation for fine dining, Philadelphia should risk it by being too slow to point out which of its restaurants should be avoided.

13 sickened: Family sues after girl, 4, was sickened in Seattle area E. coli food-truck outbreak

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JoNel Aleccia of The Seattle Times writes that the family of a 4-year-old Issaquah girl hospitalized with E. coli food poisoning last summer is suing the operators of a farmers market food truck tied to her illness and a dozen others.

Elizabeth BuderElizabeth Buder was among 13 people sickened in August and September after eating food from the Los Chilangos food truck operated by Menendez Brothers, LLC of Bellevue. The firm, which operates two food trucks that serve seven farmers markets in King and Snohomish counties, was shuttered temporarily in late August by officials at Public Health — Seattle & King County — after an investigation into the outbreak.

A complaint filed this month in King County Superior Court states that the child, known as “Scout,” shared food with her parents from a Los Chilangos truck on Aug. 8 at the Issaquah Farmer’s Market. She fell ill days later and was eventually admitted to Seattle Children’s, where doctors confirmed an E. coli O157: H7 infection according to the complaint prepared by Marler Clark, a Seattle firm that specializes in food-safety cases.

The girl developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a life-threatening complication of E. coli poisoning, and kidney failure. She was hospitalized for three weeks and will require ongoing monitoring and care. She was only recently cleared to return to school, her father said.

King County officials identified no specific source of the E. coli outbreak. The bacteria are often linked to undercooked ground beef, but can be spread through produce such as spinach and sprouts or through foods such as unpasteurized juice and raw milk.

Los Chilangos was allowed to reopen on Sept. 2 after an inspection. King County officials also shuttered Eastside Commercial Kitchen, a commissary where Los Chilangos and other vendors prepared food, but allowed that site to reopen on Sept. 8. Health officials said it’s possible the source of the outbreak may never be determined.

182 sick: Shigella cases continue to climb linked to California restaurant

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The Santa Clara County Public Health Department on Monday reported an additional 41 people sick with Shigella, bringing the total to 182.

A majority of the sick ate food last weekend from Marisco’s #3 Mexican Sea Food restaurant, located at 205 N. 4th Street in San Jose and public health officials say they expect to see more secondary cases, in which people had contact with someone who ate the restaurant.

shigella.mariscos
Shigella is extremely contagious and causes severe fever, diarrhea and stomach pain and can be spread quickly to others. County health officials say people with diarrhea must not work, especially food service workers, healthcare providers and childcare workers. Symptoms can take as long as a week to appear, but most often begin one to four days after infection.

County health experts say thorough and frequent hand washing is extremely important in preventing the continued spread of the outbreak.

40% of eateries operating without licence in Hindustan region

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Despite getting an extension on the deadline for online registration under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, about 40% vendors in the district are yet to get themselves registered with the district health department.

hindustanThe deadline for registration has been extended thrice in the past one-and-a-half year. After the expiry of the previous deadline on August 4, the health department had further extended the deadline to February 4, 2016.

However, sources in the health department said that only around 1,000 registrations have been made and 260 licences have been issued in the district through the online portal over the past 19 months.

There are about 20,000 eateries in the district, but as many as 8,000 food operators are operating without proper licences and are violating safety norms.

Moreover, there is no provision of fine against violators as the state government had extended the deadline for applying. “If the government did not extend the date, we could have started issuing challans to violators,” said a senior health official, on the condition of anonymity.

District health officer Rajpal Singh said, “We are doing our level best to create awareness and motivate food operators to get registered under the act. But there is no fear of fine among people.”

An applicant can log on to the government website http://foodlicensing.fssai.gov.in/and can register with the health department after furnishing complete details of the business and submitting the fee amount.

The blame game: Factory worker lunches in Vietnam edition

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According to Thanhnien News, 33 outbreaks resulting in over 2000 cases of foodborne illness have been linked to cheap, work-provided lunches in Vietnam this year, including one a couple of weeks ago. National health officials blame poor local oversight over kitchens.

Nice support from folks that are supposed to work together.

Lunch for workers at a shoe factory in Binh Duong Province is mostly rice and a little pork and vegetables.P1030832

The mass food poisoning suffered by 441 workers at the factory on October 21 was a reminder of the unhealthy factory lunches provided in Vietnam, which has been a major cause of wildcat strikes and the fact that its productivity is among the lowest in the world.

Truong Thi Bich Hanh, vice chairwoman of the Labor Union in Binh Duong, an industrial hub with 150,000 companies, said at least 8 percent of them pay only around 40 cents for a worker’s meal, or less than half the price of a cheap meal at a street eatery.

At least 33 cases of mass food poisoning involving 2,302 people, most of them factory workers, have been reported across the country this year.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of the food safety department at the health ministry, said the cost of the meal is too low to ensure quality.

“Low-quality ingredients easily suffer bacterial or toxic contamination,” Phong said, adding that some kitchens even use ingredients that are already spoiled.

He also blamed local authorities for failing to monitor hygiene in factory kitchens, many of which are open for a long time before receiving any food safety and hygiene checks.