The holiday season seems to bring out the worst food safety outcomes in food businesses and in homes. Sometimes the illnesses are linked to big family or community dinners prepared by folks who aren’t used to cooking for crowds. Other times, outbreaks are linked to restaurant staff that take time-saving shortcuts by cooking lots of food ahead and not handling it well before service.

Looks like the latter has happened in the UK and tragically has resulted in a death. According to BBC News, a mother of a 14-year-girl and at least 30 people became ill from a Christmas Day meal served at the Railway Hotel. Investigators subsequently recovered Clostridium perfringens from stool samples.

[Della] Callagher’s husband John said he took her to hospital on Boxing Day but is angry doctors told her to go home.
“We went to hospital and she had an injection then they told her to go home and lay down,” he told BBC London.

“There was no blood test.”
He said she got worse the next day and was taken to hospital where she died.

“If she was rolling around on the floor they would have admitted her – but because she was dignified she wasn’t,” he said. “We have been working with environmental health officers at Havering Council to identify the cause of illness and any links to food eaten at the venue.

A spokeswoman for The Railway Hotel, which remains open, offered condolences to the family. She added: “We are fully co-operating with the environmental health and Health Protection Agency teams while they conduct a thorough investigation.

“However until this investigation is complete we can’t speculate about the possible cause or source.”

Clostridium perfringens spores often survive cooking but are not a problem until the food is held at an improper temperature. Precooked not reheated to 165°F and hot-held above 135°F increases decreases the chance that any vegetative cells still present will survive and wont allow any remaining spores to germinate and outgrow to form more cells.