Author Archives: Ben Chapman

Ben Chapman

About Ben Chapman

Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gate keepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a biweekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.

Chipotle’s processing changes: soundbite edition

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I missed out on chatting with Jim-don’t-call-me-Louis-CK-Cramer but CNBC’s Closing Bell continues to cover the Chipotle outbreak anthology.

CNBC also has a decent breakdown of how outbreaks are investigated (good background for food company executives so they don’t say that CDC is picking on them).

Doctors and lab technicians are required to alert health authorities if a patient is diagnosed with any of a number of diseases, including many food borne illnesses. The reports made to state health departments help to collect data and determine disease trends.

The state health departments use techniques such as serotyping, which identifies more particular types of a given bacteria, like Salmonella. They also do DNA “fingerprinting,” which isolates variable elements in a string to be matched to other DNA found in a cluster.

They input their findings into a system called PulseNet.

One problem for the CDC in identifying fresh produce as the source of an outbreak is that by the time investigators find the food, the infected produce could be spoiled and no longer available for testing. Between physicians, state health authorities and CDC lab testing, the whole process can take weeks.

That means it’s likely that once you read about people taken ill in the news, they were infected a while ago. The illnesses that were reported the week of Dec. 21 started between Nov. 18 and 26, for example.

From the Salmonella-in-low-moisture-foods file: survival for 180+ days in cookie and cracker sandwiches

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In 2009 when PCA was distributing Salmonella-contaminated peanut paste products to lots of manufacturers, many were asking questions about how the pathogen survived in the low-moisture environment and whether the outbreak was an indicator that the snack food industry was facing a larger issue. Since then there have been numerous low-moisture food outbreaks (here’s a nice review from Sofia Santillana Farakos and Joe Franks).

Friends of barfblog Larry Beuchat (right, exactly as shown) and Scott Burnett did some work on peanut butter and Salmonella and showed that the pathogen could survive for a long, long time, Larry-Beuchat-28622-105-230x154‘Post-process contamination of peanut butter and spreads with Salmonella may to result in survival in these products for the duration of their shelf life at 5 degrees C and possibly 21 degrees C, depending on the formulation.’

Larry has published another great paper on Salmonella in low moisture foods, Survival of Salmonella in Cookie and Cracker Sandwiches Containing Inoculated, Low-Water Activity Fillings in JFP. From the abstract, ‘The ability of Salmonella to survive for at least 182 days in fillings of cookie and cracker sandwiches demonstrates a need to assure that filling ingredients do not contain the pathogen and that contamination does not occur during manufacture.’

Yep

Or in his own words,

“There have been an increased number of outbreaks of diseases associated with consumption of contaminated dry foods. We wouldn’t expect salmonella to grow in foods that have a very dry environment,” said Beuchat, who works with the Center for Food Safety on the UGA campus in Griffin.

Focusing on cookie and cracker sandwiches, the researchers put the salmonella into four types of fillings found in cookies or crackers and placed them into storage. The researchers used cheese and peanut butter fillings for the cracker sandwiches and chocolate and vanilla fillings for the cookie sandwiches.

These “are the kind that we find in grocery stores or vending machines,” Beuchat said.

“The salmonella didn’t survive as well in the cracker sandwiches as it did in the cookie sandwiches,” Beuchat said.

In some cases, the pathogen was able to survive for at least to six months in the sandwiches.“That was not expected,” he said.

Norovirus-linked Chipotle reopens in Boston; manager and employee fired

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Following an all-clear (which means, you’re meeting the basic food code requirements) from health officials, the Chipotle location linked to over 140 norovirus illnesses is all set to open. Minus at least two employees – the manager and ill employee have, according to WCVB, both been fired.

Chipotle is expected to be cleared to reopen its Cleveland Circle location Wednesday after more than 100 customers got sick with norovirus earlier this month.chipotle21

Boston Inspectional Services said the restaurant has been disinfected and a second round of samples tested negative for norovirus. All employees also tested negative for the virus.

City inspectors were at the restaurant for a final rundown Wednesday.

One hundred and forty people, most of them Boston College students, got norovirus after eating at the restaurant.

Health officials said a sick employee was the source. The company said that employee and the manager on duty at the time have been fired.

There was some organizational/food safety culture issue at work in this outbreak. The chain offers paid sick leave to its employees – so why was there an ill food handler working?

That’s a values/not understanding risk issue and a management fail.

An exercise in risk management: some of Chipotle’s plans come out 

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With six outbreaks now associated with Chipotle since July, the burrito chain is under scrutiny from the public and food safety folks for being heavy on promises to be 20 years ahead of everyone else and light on details. A couple of weeks ago they talked about switching their tomato handling from largely an in-store process to a centralized commissary with controls.

According to AP, here are some of the other specifics:2014-10-28-Chipotle_burrito2.jpg

Onions will be dipped in boiling water to kill germs before they’re chopped. Raw chicken will be marinated in re-sealable plastic bags, rather than in bowls. Cilantro will be added to freshly cooked rice so the heat gets rid of microbes in the garnish.

“When you’re given a project like this, you look at the universe of hazards,” said Mansour Samadpour, CEO of IEH Laboratories, which was hired by Chipotle to tighten its procedures.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said many of changes will be implemented in coming weeks, but that the company doesn’t expect the taste of its food to suffer. Among the tweaks the company is making:

—Cheese will now arrive in restaurants shredded.

—Ingredients like onions will be macerated with lemon or lime juice to kill germs.

—60 samples of every 2,000 pounds of steak will be tested before it’s sent to stores. A similar testing program will be implemented for chicken in coming weeks. Pork and barbacoa beef are already delivered cooked in sealed bags.

—Tomatoes, cilantro and other ingredients will be chopped in centralized locations, rather than in stores, so they can be tested. Chipotle has said in the past that tomatoes taste better when freshly diced in restaurants. After the outbreak, Chipotle co-CEO Steve Ells changed tunes: “If I’m eating a burrito that had tomatoes that were chopped in a central kitchen in the salsa or one that was chopped in house, I probably couldn’t tell the difference,” he said in an interview on CNBC last week.

Not all chopping will be moved to centralized locations. Onions, for instance, would oxidize and smell bad if they were chopped days in advance, Samadpour said. So they will remain chopped in restaurants, along with lemons, limes and jalapenos. All will now be blanched to kill germs.

These are some good steps, I’d love to see the validation data that shows onions macerated with high-acid juice will take care of pathogens. Salmonella has been shown to be pretty hardy in the ceviche-type setting (resulting in a 1-2 log reduction according to some work done by barfblog friend and podcast buddy Don Schaffner).

I’d love to see the data associated with adding-cilantro-to-hot-rice – sounds like a good idea, but what is the heat transfer like and what does it do to the pathogens?

Sealed bags vs open bowls for marination is good – but those bags still need to be opened and the juices controlled.

CDC investigating another E. coli O26 outbreak linked to Chipotle

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Last week Chipotle CEO Steve Ells said ‘we can assure you today that there is no E. coli in Chipotle.’  CDC is saying not so fast. According to an update, they are apparently investigating another O26 outbreak linked to Chipotle.
CDC is investigating another, more recent outbreak of a different, rare DNA fingerprint of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O26 (STEC O26) linked to Chipotle Mexican Grill. Because it is not known if these infections are related to the larger, previously reported outbreak of STEC O26 infections, these illnesses are not being included in the case count for that outbreak. This investigation is ongoing.

In unrelated news (thanks to a keen barfblog reader) a Virginia customer slammed a car through a Chipotle window.

 

 

Emergency food needs to be safe food, and often is; but formality of systems is lacking

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A few years ago an outbreak linked to a Denver homeless shelter made it into the barfblog new and notable category. Forty folks who depended on the emergency food were affected by violent foodborne illness symptoms after eating donated turkey. Fourteen ambulances showed up and took those most affected to area hospitals.

Volunteering as a food handler at a mission, shelter or soup kitchen and having a good heart and intentions doesn’t automatically lead to safe meals. An understanding of risks and having systems how to reduce them may.33364_oh_45701_athens-county-food-pantry_acv

Around the same time as the Denver outbreak, colleague, friend and STEC CAP collaborator Christine Bruhn created a set of food safety materials for folks volunteering with food in their communities. Ashley Chaifetz, a former graduate student in the department of public policy at UNC-Chapel Hill took Christine’s content foundation and went out to the food pantry community to assess infrastructure and current food safety practices to tailor materials to the audience.

Martha Waggoner of the Associated Press wrote about Ashley’s work this week,

[A] study by researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that pantry procedures are often informal, although they do a good job in many areas, including provided hand-washing facilities.

“Generally, we found they were doing things pretty well,” said Ben Chapman, senior author of a paper about pantries and food handling published in the Journal of Food Protection. “They were in line with what you see in at commercial entities.”

Safety was likely to be more formal at pantries were associated with a food bank, said Chapman, associate professor of youth, family and consumer sciences at N.C. State.

Chapman and a researcher from UNC-Chapel Hill (Ashley Chaifetz -ben) visited 105 pantries in 12 counties. They then developed protocols for food pantry volunteers, such as a flow chart for when canned food should be tossed.

The researchers learned that some pantries get large cuts of fresh meat that their volunteers must cut, while almost 10 percent were accepting and distributing home-canned items, which can be risky because of the chance of botulism.

“From a hunger standpoint, that’s fantastic,” he said. “Just relying on canned foods and dried foods doesn’t give you a lot of choices … It’s really good for the hunger world, but there’s an increase in safety risks.”

The paper, Evaluating North Carolina Food Pantry Food Safety–Related Operating Procedures, was published online Nov. 1 in the Journal of Food Protection. The work was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grant 2012-68003-30155 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Fig & Olive dude says commercial mayo used for safety reasons; not much else

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Something that came out of the food safety infosheet video observation evaluation work we did a few years ago was that time pressures lead to risky practices. Poor handwashing and cross-contamination occurred when the kitchens were busy during breakfast and lunch rushes.

Maybe taking out the spikes in production demand and going to a commissary system is a safer one, we said.lsjpg

Tim Carmen of The Washington Post posted an in-depth interview with food porn purveyor Greg Galy of Fig & Olive following last weeks Washington Daily investigative interview and talked about going away from a commissary system (which was linked to a 150+ case outbreak of Salmonella). But not for food safety reasons.

Galy clarifies what types of foods were made in a New York commissary and shipped to their outlets in DC and California (and elsewhere) as well as avoiding actually apologizing for making patrons sick. And doesn’t say much about the outbreak at all.

There hasn’t been anything related to salmonella in the ingredients. [Note: Investigators haven’t been able to trace the salmonella to any Fig & Olive ingredient.] They haven’t been able to find traces definitively. We still don’t know to this day exactly what happened. We took all measures and precaution at the time, I believe, to resolve what needed to be done. Again, I can’t really expand my comments on anything related to the process, the timing, the salmonella cases.

But he does touch on why they chose to use commercially prepared mayonnaise:

In regards to the comments that was made on the Hellmann’s mayonnaise, the mayonnaise made in-house [uses Hellmann’s] because of the safety concerns of utilizing raw eggs. That’s why they’re using a commercial mayonnaise. It’s actually recommended by safety consultants.

Food porn shot of the day: turmeric is keeping me safe (apparently)

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A cold weather favorite meal at our house is butternut squash soup. In addition to the curry powder included in the recipe I add additional turmeric and fresh ginger.

I learned this week I’m staying extra safe from pathogens after researchers from Southern Illinois University published a study on using curcumin, a major component of turmeric as an antibacterial compound.IMG_0376

But, like the oregano/norovirus silliness last year, just having an antibacterial compound doesn’t mean it’s practical to include turmeric onto food contact surfaces or food.

I cooked my soup to over 200F for about an hour. And then put it into a shallow dish and cooled it.

Over 300 ill with noro at UK school

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Sick kids can spread gastrointestinal viruses around pretty quickly. I write from experience, my kids have brought home what was likely norovirus a couple of times from school/preschool and spread it to Dani and I.

10849902_719581291471357_3442145704847569295_n1-300x3001-300x300Once the perfect human pathogen is in a restaurant, grocery store, or cruise ship – or school – it’s tough to get it out without some illnesses.

According to the Courier, a school in the UK, Langlands Primary, has over 300 kids ill as the virus runs through the population

A council spokeswoman previously said: “Parents and carers are advised to keep unwell children at home until they are clear of the virus for 48 hours … The school remains open and senior staff will be teaching affected classes.”

The spokesman added: “The school is working with the local environmental health service to investigate the cause of this illness. We have arranged for additional cleaning to be carried out to reduce the risk of any further infection.”

Parents told The Courier they felt the school should have been shut to contain the outbreak.

Nada Wilson-Bruce said: “My son has it… really wish they would shut the school. He has been very poorly since the early hours of this morning and has been vomiting blood (he has had medical attention).

“Both of my children will stay off until I am convinced the outbreak has diminished.”

Jennifer Clark Mitchell added: “My son isn’t displaying any symptoms, but given the large outbreak he won’t be back until after Christmas.

“The school needs to be properly deep cleaned with strong disinfectant and remain closed for a couple of days to ensure all bugs have died.”

Part of the problem with noro (beyond the low mean infectious dose; environmental stability; and, 10^9 virus particles per gram of vomit/poop) is a vomit event can lead to particles floating through the air. And maybe moving 30 feet from the barf splatter.

 

We take food safety seriously and other predictable messages: Noro in PEI edition

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The Prince Edward Island (that’s in Canada) still doesn’t think hotel management is at fault for over 160 norovirus illnesses even though they reportedly had a bunch of food handlers sick while preparing food.

I disagree. People showing up to work ill and handling food is a managerial fail.

According to the Guardian, the hotel is really sorry too.unnamed

Staff ill with the Norwalk virus while serving or preparing food were the most likely cause of the recent gastro-intestinal illness striking many guests of a Charlottetown hotel, says the province’s chief public health officer.

However, Dr. Heather Morrison doesn’t think the Delta Prince Edward’s food safety or its handling and cleaning practices are to blame, and doesn’t know of anything the hotel could have done to avoid the outbreak.

The outbreak was associated with three functions at the hotel on Dec. 5.

Illness was reported in 134 guests and 35 hotel staff.

James Tingley, the general manager of Delta Hotels and Resorts, declined to do an interview with The Guardian, but issued a statement noting the hotel immediately contacted the health department following reports of people feeling sick after attending an event at the hotel.

The statement notes hotel hygiene and cleanliness are taken very seriously.

Following the health department’s guidance, the hotel implemented a “comprehensive process to sanitize the hotel’’.

The hotel also posted signs in the lobby and at the entrance to the restaurant to inform guests about the outbreak.

The statement also extends “heartfelt apologies’’ to those that may have gotten sick after visiting the Delta Prince Edward.