A complaint was filed at U.S. 30 Diner on West Market Street in York and the inspector found 24 violations. The inspector found a sewage back-up in the basement piping system. One of the pipes was leaking and the facility was using duct tape as a repair. The inspector also says food employees were wearing soiled garments, and personal medication was found on a shelf with food. They say the entire food facility was extremely dirty with old food, trash, and dirt. The inspector also found a dog leash. The person in charge acknowledged that he brings his dog into the rear of the food facility, according to the report.
The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) conducts routine food inspections of over 15,000 food establishments to ensure the health and safety of their patrons.
In 2015, CDPH deployed a machine learning model to schedule inspections of establishments based on their likelihood to commit critical food code violations.
The City of Chicago released the training data and source code for the model, allowing anyone to examine the model. We provide the first independent analysis of the model, the data, the predictor variables, the performance metrics, and the underlying assumptions. We present a summary of our findings, share lessons learned, and make recommendations to address some of the issues our analysis unearthed.
Hindsight analysis of the Chicago food inspection forecasting model, 2019
Illinois Institute of Technology
Vinesh Kannan, Matthew Shapiro, and Mustafa Bilgic
Janene Pieters of the NL Times reports a video of a mouse munching on a crepe in an Amsterdam cafe, resulted in the business being ordered closed by the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA. The video was posted on Twitter on Wednesday. NVWA inspectors went to inspect the cafe and found more vermin. Which is why the cafe was ordered closed, RTL Nieuws reports.
“The business can only be reopened if the entrepreneur has thoroughly cleaned everything up and has taken measures to prevent vermin”, the NVWA said. All food supplies currently in the store must also be discarded. The situation in the cafe was unsafe and a public health hazard, an NVWA spokesperson said to the broadcaster.
The NVWA is pleased that consumers report when they see vermin in shops or catering establishments. “With or without a video we take these kinds of complaints seriously. Mice are a direct threat to food safety.”
Evan Kruegel of Fox 31 reports a Denver restaurant with previous food safety violations is once again being inspected after a video surfaced showing a rat inside the restaurant.
Dominic Trujillo says he took the video on Sept.16, while waiting for Mt. Fuji Sushi & Hibachi to open. The video appears to show a rat eating food scraps between the glass and a window shade at the restaurant off of East Sixth Avenue in Capitol Hill.
He posted the video on social media and says a manager sent him a private message, offering a gift card in exchange for taking the video down.
The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment visited the restaurant Wednesday after seeing the video and found no violations.
“Yesterday we had the health department come and they checked everything, inspected everything, and everything looks fine,” said Osa Enebish, with the restaurant. “Our back door — it was left open and we fixed that door, so it might have came through that door, we don’t know.”
In February, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment found 12 critical health code issues at Mt. Fuji, including rodent droppings found in storage cabinets.
WATE reports a customer complaint sent a health inspector back to a Morristown restaurant six weeks after a routine inspection.
Golden Dragon, 3325 Andrew Johnson Highway, Morristown – Grade: 70
The Golden Dragon on Andrew Johnson Highway scored a 70 during the most recent inspection. The score was passing. The health department considers a grade below 70 is considered “unsanitary.”
Several of the violations marked off in the report could lead to foodborne illness if not corrected.
The inspector wrote he watched a worker carry dirty dishes from the dining room into the kitchen and start preparing food without washing his hands.
Another kitchen worker washed large containers of food in the utility sink with water and put them away without rinsing and sanitizing them.
Inside the kitchen raw frog legs were stored over banana pudding and raw fish was stored over broccoli. That is OK at home but raw food contains bacteria and placing raw food over ready to eat food raises the potential for cross-contamination.
Assif Majid of BBC News writes that Watchdog’s reporter was given no training on keeping delivery crates and vans clean.
The reporter witnessed spillages, but was told by senior drivers that there was no need to clear it up during the delivery round.
Asda says it has a “clean as you go” policy and staff get full training.
Both Asda employees and customers have contacted the consumer programme with allegations about the cleanliness of the store’s delivery crates.
One driver told the programme: “There’s no cleaning process in place. The crates are used over and over again, even after spillages. Most, if not all, are dirty, from food, and things like smashed eggs.”
Another driver told the programme they are so concerned about poor hygiene, they are worried about their own family eating food from the crates.
Asda said the findings were “isolated examples and the opinion of individual colleagues”.
It added: “The findings do not reflect the extensive policies and training they have in place, which are supported by independent third party audits.”
The supermarket also says Watchdog’s researcher did not receive the full role-specific training because he didn’t do enough shifts.
Chartered environmental health practitioner Barrie Trevena said: “Even if the food you’re putting in is wrapped, the packages then become contaminated and then when the customer handles the cans and the packages, then that’s going to contaminate their worktop and fridge.”
The company said it delivered almost half a million orders each week, using their totes more than 2.5 million times, and it was inaccurate and misleading to suggest that it did not have policies or training in place at a business level.
Not enough critical questions answered, coupled with numerical spin.
Jasper Lindell of The Canberra Times reports the number of improvement notices issued to ACT businesses for not complying with food safety requirements more than halved in the last financial year, with ACT Health confident there were fewer serious safety breaches.
Eighty-seven improvement notices were issued in 2018-19, down from 341 in 2017-18. More than 600 were issued in 2015-16, according to figures from ACT Health.
In 2017-18, 2443 inspections were carried out while 2552 inspections were completed in 2018-19.
The targeted amount in both years was 2500 inspections.
The executive branch manager of the ACT Health Protection Service, Conrad Barr, said food businesses in the ACT demonstrated a high level of compliance with safety standards.
“We are focused on protecting the community with our food safety inspectors doing over 2500 inspections every year.
“We also aim to strike the right balance of regulation with our compliance activity, actively working with businesses to rectify any issues that are identified,” he said.
The decline in food safety breaches followed the introduction in 2017 of a model to educate businesses and their staff in food safety requirements, after five years of inspection pass rates falling well below the targets.
ACT Health has collaborated with the Canberra Business Chamber and Access Canberra to run information seminars for food businesses, community groups and event organisers.
Proactive inspections provided a chance for food businesses to discuss food safety issues directly with public health officers, while seminars and self-assessment options were made available to businesses, a spokeswoman for the directorate told the Sunday Canberra Times.
Common food safety issues found in ACT food businesses include a lack of handwashing facilities, poor temperature control and live pests.
Inspectors also identified inadequate cleaning and sanitation, no food-grade thermometer at the time of the inspection, or no nominated food safety supervisor.
Drew Knight of KVUE reports a video posted Sunday appears to show a mouse jumping into a deep fryer at a Bastrop, Texas, Whataburger restaurant.
Since it was posted just before 1 a.m. on Sunday, it has been shared more than 34,000 times by Facebook users.
According to the poster, Brushawn Lewis, he spotted the mouse himself at the Bastrop fast food joint. The Facebook page for that location, 401 TX 71, provided the following statement in the comments of his post:
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. At Whataburger, cleanliness and food safety are top priorities for us. In this instance, we closed the restaurant out of an abundance of caution and notified pest control. The entire restaurant has since been cleaned and sanitized. We addressed this situation as quickly as possible, reinforcing procedures with our Family Members. While we’ll continue to be very diligent, it’s important to know there was no history of this type incident at this unit and there is no ongoing issue. A member of our team would like to reach out and address any concerns. Can you please share your contact information with us?”
A Chinese restaurant in Old Hickory was closed temporarily Tuesday by the Metro health Department after a video showed employees washing kitchen utensils in a nearby lake.
A video taken on Tuesday morning and posted to social media showed restaurant employees washing cooking utensils in Old Hickory Lake. The man who took the video, Lance Glover, said he recorded the incident around 7 a.m. Tuesday.
The video showed people cleaning what appears to be a fire grate in Old Hickory Lake. Glover’s video then shows the employees returning with the equipment to the restaurant.
The Metro Health Department shut down No. 1 Chinese Restaurant, located 1435 Robinson Rd., after inspectors visited the restaurant.
According to Victor Oguntimehin, the health inspector, the restaurant operators initially denied they washed items in the lake. The restaurant admitted to washing the utensils in the lake after Oguntimehin showed them Glover’s video.
Mary Capps, who fishes on Old Hickory Lake, told News 4 she has seen the employees cleaning “greasy grates” almost every morning.
A complaint was filed at U.S. 30 Diner on West Market Street in York and the inspector found 24 violations. The inspector found a sewage back-up in the basement piping system. One of the pipes was leaking and the facility was using duct tape as a repair. The inspector also says food employees were wearing soiled garments, and personal medication was found on a shelf with food. They say the entire food facility was extremely dirty with old food, trash, and dirt. The inspector also found a dog leash. The person in charge acknowledged that he brings his dog into the rear of the food facility, according to the report.
