Yearly Archives: 2015

Food Safety Talk 78: Brogues are low risk

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds. The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.

The show opens with the guys reminiscing about their visit to Southern California and the Hopscotch Tavern where they witnessed a Fark worthy car chase on TV.

Ben shared his love of Top 40 music , and his worries about exposing his kids to inappropriate music like Beyoncé or Sublime. 1436278542099

From there the discussion moves to the value of real world experiences like those detailed in Kitchen Confidential, Heat, or by Gord Surgeoner during his retirement dinner.

The food safety talk begins in earnest with a discussion of Hepatitis A illnesses linked to frozen berries in Australia, and Don shared his back of the envelope quantitative microbial risk assessment for frozen berries based on this article. This was followed by a discussion on why viruses might be such a problem in frozen berries, and frozen food safety risk management in general.

Next up is an exploration of Listeria in public lavatories based on this peer reviewed publication. The conversation then devolves into Shoe Safety Talk, and the risks posed by brogues, not broughs, but the brogue shoe.

The After Dark includes a mention of Roderick’s Rendezvous, The Dan Benjamin Hour, and Don finally remembers the name of Battle Creek.

Ohio woman arrested for calling 911 about bad Chinese food

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A 44-year-old Ohio woman was arrested Monday after calling 911 to report Chinese food that was “not up to par for her liking,” according to police.

911.ohioTracey McCloud, of Alliance, placed the call to the emergency number from inside Main Moon Chinese Restaurant.

The call did not qualify as an emergency and she was arrested and charged with misuse of 911, which is a misdemeanor, police said.

Alliance Police are reminding residents that misuse or abuse of the system can delay dispatchers from taking calls from people with real emergencies.

McCloud is scheduled to appear in court later this week.

Allstate using big data to help ID food problems in Chicago

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Which of the city’s 15,000 restaurants and vendors are most likely to be the site of foodborne illnesses and should be targeted for a closer look? How can the city identify which establishments likely sell untaxed cigarettes? Which trees should be trimmed to minimize damage to power lines when a storm rolls through?

allstateAllstate, the Northbrook-based insurer, is tapping big data to try to answer those questions.

Earlier this year, Chicago began using a predictive model that Allstate’s quantitative research team helped develop to improve restaurant inspections. It combines and mines data the city already collected or were readily available to more quickly identify restaurants that pose a greater risk for foodborne illness and thus help prioritize inspections.

Tom Schenk, Chicago’s chief data officer, said the city soon planned to issue its own announcement about the food-inspection data program and declined to comment further. His Twitter feed, @ChicagoCDO, on May 14 tweeted a link to a report titled “Food Inspection Forecasting: Optimizing Inspections With Analytics.” Allstate’s participation was cited in the report.

Historically, each Chicago food inspector is responsible for nearly 470 restaurants. Among those, more than 15 percent of inspections result in at least one critical violation. So random inspections might not be the best way to prevent foodborne illnesses.

Allstate’s quantitative research staffers working on the city food project included lead analyst Stephen Collins. His connections with the nonprofit Civic Consulting Alliance, which was also credited in the “Food Inspection Forecasting” report, led to the project with the city.

Initially Allstate scientists asked “what is it we want to try to predict if we were trying to build a predictive model?” recalled Smart. “The aim was to identify critical violations much sooner, so what kind of variables or information would” foreshadow risks at food establishments?

In 2013, Chicago also began monitoring Twitter for posts that include the words “food poisoning” by people who identify themselves as Chicagoans. That initiative continues, Schenk recently told WBEZ.

UK coffee shop hit with £40K fine for hygiene offences

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A Berkshire coffee shop has been fined almost £40,000 for breaches of food safety and hygiene.

coffeaThe owners of Coffea in Thames Street in Windsor were sentenced for 13 offences relating to food safety, hygiene, and health and safety matters.

Inspectors found kitchen areas were dirty, with build-up of grease and food debris, and had not been cleaned for a considerable time.

The premises had internal structural damage to floor and wall tiles and splash guards, meaning they could not be cleaned and had accumulated dirt.

A food store room had a damaged ceiling, meaning dirt and shedding particles could contaminate food.

There was a build-up of grease and dirt on window openings in the kitchens, which also failed to prevent the entry of insects.

Food was at risk of contamination from rodents, with evidence of gnawed shell eggs and pasta; entry points found in ceiling holes and droppings discovered on store room shelves.

There were no management systems in place to ensure rodent control, stock rotation, food temperature control or food room maintenance and cleanliness.

The inspectors said there was imminent danger to the health of both customers and staff – and the director of owning company Shabaneh Ltd, Fred Yaghoubi, agreed to voluntarily close the premises.

99 sick after Salmonella outbreak: UK pub cutting staff

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Staff are being cut at the Thornaby pub hit by an outbreak of salmonella poisoning.

Anson Farm, on Teesside Industrial Estate in ThornabyA total of 99 people have now reported taking ill after eating at the Anson Farm restaurant on Teesside Industrial Estate in May.

Of those, 49 have been confirmed as salmonella infection, say Public Health England (PHE) North East.

All confirmed cases of salmonella are associated with eating at the restaurant before control measures were put in place on May 22, say PHE.

The PHE said it is not expecting any further reports of illness, and its outbreak control team will release the results of its investigation in the autumn.

Now The Gazette has learned that a number of staff at the pub, which only opened in April, are facing redundancy.

The Greene King pub chain, which owns the Anson Farm, said it is not yet known how many staff are at risk of redundancy, but said they will try to relocate them within the chain’s other pubs in the area.

Paul Currie, manager of the Anson Farm, said: “Anson Farm has not maintained the high level of trade that we saw when we initially opened in April and as a result we have to adapt the size of the team.”

Epidemiology counts: 143 sick with Salmonella in Sweden linked to spice mix

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In the latest incident, at least 80 people picked up salmonella at a restaurant on the Swedish island of Öland last week, with Sweden’s Public Health Authority connecting the outbreak to the savoury spice mix, known as Allkrydda, which is sold in supermarkets across the nation.

Sevan AllkryddaIt said the mix was already suspected of making dozens of other people ill, with a total of 143 salmonella cases reported in 17 out of Sweden’s 21 regions since December 2014.

“This is one of the largest outbreaks in recent years,” Jonas Toljander, a spokesperson for Sweden’s Food Standards Agency (Livsmedelsverket) told the TT newswire on Tuesday.

He added that the spice mix, produced by food company Sevan, was thought to be behind the nationwide salmonella scare, although experts had yet to definitively prove a link.

“It is important to say that we do not yet know if our products are linked to this,” the business manager for Sevan, Julia Kronlund, explained to Swedish broadcaster SVT on Tuesday.

“What they [the victims] have in common is that they have consumed the seasoning mix,” she said, but added that other potential causes of the outbreak could not yet be excluded.

A spokesperson for Sweden’s Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten) told TT that it was now carrying out tests on similar spices, while Sevan said that it had submitted more samples to be checked over by experts.

But Sevan said it was recalling all Allkrydda products sold since 2014, in order to avoid exposing customers to any unnecessary risks. It advised people who had the spice jars at home to return them to the stores where they bought them from, where they would be granted a refund, with Sevan footing the bill.

The recalled spice products are:

Sevan Allkrydda 900g (serial number 7221217881469)

Sevan Allkrydda 450g (serial number 7331217881452)

Sevan Allkrydda Hink 5kg (serial number 7331217010708)

Food safety indifference

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When I repeat a breakout drill on the ice rink for 6-9-year-olds playing hockey – in Australia — I can see the parents rolling their eyes, yet the same parents marvel at the improvement when it comes to games.

powell.food.safe.indiffIt takes time. It takes effort. It takes fun.

I’ve been playing, coaching and sometimes administrating hockey for almost 50 years.

I’ve been playing, coaching and sometimes administrating microbial food safety things for 23 years (I’m old – two grandsons).

There’s not much difference.

Except one group is little kids trying to learn things, and the other is adults, paid money, who seem to want to make money.

And not learn.

Food safety indifference is the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my professoring or professional career: How to get people to care in the absence of an outbreak?

I’ve had the good fortune to work with industry types around the globe who recognized risk and were proactive – but it was really about trade, not fewer sick people.

indifferenceFrom Sara Lee in 1998 to Maple Leaf Foods in 2008 to Blue Bell today, companies act with shock and compassion when they find out they sickened people – in all these cases with Listeria — but a reflective glance is more critical.

They all had Listeria positives, but no one got sick yesterday, so the assumption is there’s a greater probability no one will get sick tomorrow.

Nice approach, until you get caught.

In Sept. 2014, 130 Canadians were sickened with E. coli O157 in pork.

Not the usual vehicle.

When a Canadian television station tried to do a follow-up in 2015, they were blocked by government and industry at every step.

Global News went through a years-long access-to-information process to obtain incident reports on E. coli found in Canadian food plants, most of it redacted.

How is it that 22 years after Jack-in-the-Box, North Americans seem to be adopting an attitude of indifference to food safety?

There’s lots of outbreaks, and communications research would suggest people are overloaded, so what’s a food safety type to do?

There is so much bad food safety advice that circulates in the PR-driven media, I’m not sure: How many years can anyone spend saying, you’re scientifically full of crap, stop it.

Food safety types need to persevere against the push for profit and stick with the message and the medium.

The best companies will do more than have manufactured soundbites about how food safety is their number 1 priority.

It doesn’t match up with reality, and food safety types, you’ll be needed sooner than you think.

Make food safety data public; market microbial food safety at retail; and repeat.

We won the game last week because the kids knew the drill, we’d practiced it, and we had fun.

Food safety should be the same.

Dr. Douglas Powell is a former professor of food safety at the University of Guelph in Canada and Kansas State University in the U.S., who shops, cooks and ferments from his home in Brisbane, Australia.

dpowell29@gmail.com

0478 222 221

Common sense is only common if you’ve thought of it: NY Times food safety fail

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Common sense should prevail. If food has been sitting in the back of the fridge for weeks, if it’s slimy or smells funky, get rid of it. As the saying goes: If in doubt, throw it out.

quote-common-sense-is-the-collection-of-prejudices-acquired-by-age-eighteen-albert-einstein-56324That’s the best the New York Times can do on guidelines for when food goes bad.

They offer the standard guidelines and buy into to we waste food philosophy (I compost).

  • A “sell by” date indicates how long a store should display a product on its shelves. Foods can still be tasty and are safe for several days longer if stored properly.
  • A “use by” or “best if used by” date comes from the manufacturer and refers to taste and texture, not safety.
  • An “expiration” date is the only packaging date related to food safety. If this date has passed, throw the food out.

Bob Gravani, a professor of food science at Cornell University added some knowledge to the article by saying that looking closely at food isn’t a good way to check for spoilage, because bacteria are largely invisible.

Listeria raw pet food recall…with a twist

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Friend and fellow hockey aficionado, Scott Weese writes in his Worms & Germs Blog that the recent recall of Stella & Chewy’s products because of Listeria contamination is noteworthy.

stella.chewy'sWhy?

Because their food is treated with high pressure pasteurization (HPP). That’s a process that uses high pressure to destroy bacteria. My typical line is that I consider HPP-treated food to be similar to commercial cooked products in terms of risk of contamination and public health concerns. Yet, I add in the disclaimer that actual evidence of effectiveness on pet food seems to be limited. It makes sense that it would work; however, various factors impact the effectiveness of HPP so companies should have specific data that show their process works.

So, the big question here isn’t ‘why were bacteria in the food’? It’s raw, bacteria are common contaminants.

The question is ‘why were live bacteria in the food”? Figuring out how Listeria made it through processing is critically important. Hopefully there’s a real investigation into this.

There are a few main scenarios that I can come up with, and they vary greatly in their concern.

Post-treatment contamination: Careful review of the manufacturing process and testing (culture) of various environmental surfaces would typically be part of in investigation of this area. If this was the problem, things such as physical or procedural changes and more QC testing might be indicated.

Ineffective HPP: There could be two different scenarios.

-One is a breakdown in the process, with equipment problems, human error or some similar issue preventing an effective method from working. This is a problem but would presumably be fixable.

-The other (more concerning) one is that the procedure they use is not actually adequately effective.

Figuring out those is important to reduce the risk and help people make informed decisions about buying raw products.

Gas issues? Australian restaurant closed after wire in fried rice

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A popular Chinese restaurant in Brisbane was shut down after a woman suffered severe throat trauma when she swallowed part of a stainless steel pot scrubber in her fried rice late last month.

Fried-Rice-037Maxine Dosen was dining with her father at Bamboo Basket Chinese Restaurant, in the Portside precinct at Hamilton, when she ordered a small serving of fried rice.

“It all happened so quickly,” Ms Dosen said.

“I put this fried rice in my mouth and suddenly felt something sharp, like a prawn shell, go down my throat.

“I tried to bring it back up my throat and pulled this long, curly thing out of my mouth and put it down on a red napkin.”

She said stretched out on the table was a 4cm piece metal stretched. She also coughed up several metal shavings.

Having a history of digestive issues and bowel operations, Ms Dosen was raced to hospital as her doctors feared the metal may have entered her bowel.

Ms Dosen ended up with severe oesophageal scratching.

The injury developed into a serious infection, causing her to lose her voice.

A Brisbane City Council spokeswoman told The Courier-Mail an immediate on-site investigation was conducted at the restaurant.

“Council has issued the business with an immediate suspension of the restaurant’s food business licence and will continue to investigate the alleged stainless steel contaminant,” the spokeswoman said.

“The business will remain closed until council is satisfied the restaurant does not pose a safety risk to the public.”

A sign on the front door to the restaurant yesterday cited “unforeseen gas issues” as the reason for the closure and hoped to restore operations shortly.