Food Safety Talk 77: Sous vide is French for under vacuum

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Ben Chapman

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.

Ben and Don start by catching up about technology. Ben is quite excited about Google fiber coming to Raleigh, NC, Don, already subscribed to Verizon fios says that the fiber is great. Ben then leads a discussion about his new obsession, the Wake Forest Community discussion board on Facebook. The page is a forum for pretty much anything from tooth abscesses, to snakes, to local business ratings. The guys delve into the community forum concept and explore the intersection with food safety (sale of goods, transportation from out of state). Don mentions that he has been volunteering with the innovation committee in Freehold borough who also is looking at a community forum. Ben introduces the concept of lip dubbing and Don provides his favorite, a NFL video about reading of lips incorrectly.

The real food safety portion of the podcast starts by Don talking about Better Process Control School. Don talked about some feedback he was giving to a couple of small companies about aseptic processing, challenge studies and jacketed kettles, and expressed some frustration with FDA because sometimes their interpretation of science isn’t clear.

The discussion goes into regulatory hurdles, retail food safety, variances and HACCP plans. Ben talked about an individual that is interested in food sustainability who is looking to divert food waste from restaurants to pantries, using reduced oxygen packaging for storage and transport. The guys talk about regulating food even that is given away (but not it all states) and the variance process.

NC Senator Thom Tillis garnered headlines for suggesting that restaurants be allowed to opt out of handwashing regulations as long as they post a disclosure or advisory – or replacing one regulation with another. The podcast ends with a discussion of a possible norovirus outbreak at NC State.

‘Vomiting, aching limbs hot flushes’ Gastro outbreak at Cardiff hotel

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Douglas Powell

A hotel in Cardiff remains closed following an outbreak of gastroenteritis leaving 26 people feeling ill.

The Angel Hotel, in Castle Street, was closed this week following the outbreak.

Speaking to the BBCWales, teacher Kevin Waite from Gwaelod-y-Garth, Cardiff, fell ill at the hotel after attending a training event on Friday

He said: “I felt nauseous, I was having hot and cold flushes and my limbs were aching.

“I started vomiting on Sunday and this lasted through until Monday.

“The hotel looked plush, pleasant and clean. There was nothing to point to any problems.”

“I’m shocked and disappointed. But these bugs can happen for many reasons.”

Is food safe at airline operations at Los Angeles airport

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Whenever I fly, I avoid LAX. The Los Angeles airport is a mess, with terminals scattered all around, but you may see a porn star (or wannabe).

A federal inspector on a routine visit to food service facilities at Los Angeles International Airport in January found conditions that, she wrote, could compromise the safety of food meant for airline passengers.

Bathrooms where employees washed their hands were dirty. Machines used to control bacteria were not adequately maintained. And clutter in the food storage area created a potential for pests, the inspector for the Food and Drug Administration wrote, according to a report.

The Los Angeles facilities were one of several catering operations owned and operated by Flying Food Group, which prepares meals for some of the world’s largest airlines. Inspectors over the past few years have found unsanitary conditions in several kitchens operated by the company.

Friend of the barfblog, Roy Costa, said, “There is a real risk of illness and injury to tens of thousands of airline passengers on a daily basis.”

But another friend of the barfblog, Paul A. Hall, vice president for food safety and quality at Flying Food Group, acknowledged the findings of the F.D.A. inspections cited in the union report, but added that the problems at the facilities had been fixed. The company also said the report from the union was part of an effort to organize workers at the company.

“While we strive for perfection in all we do, F.F.G. acknowledges that at times we fall short of that goal,” he said in an email. “However, once issues are identified, a root cause analysis is conducted and actions taken based on that analysis. If repeat problems occur, we keep looking for solutions until we find the effective one.”

Dr. Hall said workers were encouraged to take problems to the attention of their managers. But workers at the Los Angeles facility said in interviews that managers rarely listened to their complaints.

They said that dishwashing machines regularly broke down, leaving workers to wash plates and other dishes by hand, often without detergent; that managers had ordered workers to change the dates indicating when food was prepared; and that they had seen insects and rodents in areas where food was being prepared.

Flying Food disputes these accusations. In a statement, the company said it had received no complaints from employees about problems with food safety or unsanitary conditions at its Los Angeles facilities. It said an outside auditor hired by several airlines, including Air France, had recently inspected the facilities and given them high marks for quality and food safety.

Sandwich scandal? Temperature, ingredients sometimes questionable

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Though it is nice to know your lunchtime sandwich is handmade, how many hands is that, exactly? Thousands of readers reacted with horror to some startling photographs in yesterday’s Mail taken inside a Nottinghamshire factory that supplies millions of sandwiches to British supermarkets.

They were outraged that workers — an army of them — were smushing and smearing gloopy fillings with their bare hands onto slices of bread, chugging by on a conveyor belt.

Fingers, thumbs and palms all over your lunch, not least the factory workers’ sleeves taking a dip in what looked like chicken mayo. Yuck. No polythene food-safe gloves, no tongs, just the odd sauce-squirter shooting a blob of salad cream smack into the centre of the bread. Bullseye!

Factory owner Greencore, which supplies High Street giants such as Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Co-op, Asda and Boots, insists that the use of bare hands is, in fact, a hygienic and safe way to produce the nation’s favourite lunchtime convenience food. We have to take Greencore’s word for it that strict hand-washing regimes are a better deterrent against cross-contamination.

But never mind the bare hands; what about the rubbish inside some sarnies?

The UK sandwich market is worth approximately £3.6 billion, with consumers buying an estimated two billion sandwiches each year. A survey last month of 2,000 office workers revealed that the nation’s favourite lunch was the humble cheese sandwich, with 32 per cent of those surveyed saying they’d had one for lunch every day for the past four-and-a-half years.

I do not know about the quality of the Nottingham factory’s ingredients, which may not be beset by the problems elsewhere. Greencore prides itself on operating to the highest standards. But I do know that we should be wary of convenience foods — and many of the shop sarnies found on the High Street today. We are often talking about food that is downright fake and overpriced.

For example so-called meats that are actually a glued-together mush of pulped pork, starch, sometimes proteins made with animal blood plasma, water, (lots of) salt, preservatives and flavourings.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain was asked if it was acceptable from a food safety point of view to deviate from the legal storage temperature of sandwiches, in particular 13 °C instead of 4 °C or 7 °C, depending on the type of garnish and if an upward temperature fluctuation of 3 °C, measurement uncertainty included, can still be accepted.

The Scientific Committee estimates that the additional food safety risk arising as a result of the storage of sandwiches at 13 °C during 3 hours is low if the sandwiches are kept thereafter maximum during 4 hours at ambient temperature. This risk estimation does not apply for sandwiches with fresh meat and meat preparations (including carpaccio, minced meat, steak tartare) or fresh fish which are inherently more susceptible to microbiological contamination and putrefaction or growth of pathogens under non-refrigerated storage conditions. For an upward temperature fluctuation of 3 °C, measurement uncertainty included, the food safety risk is estimated as low if it only occurs when this is necessary for the handling during the preparation, transport, storage, display and delivery of foods.

People are sick: Jimmy Johns in Utah closed for health violations

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Douglas Powell

As Fox News is to Jon Stewart, Jimmy John’s is to food safety types: the gift that keeps on giving.

A Jimmy Johns – they make those sandwiches popular on university campuses — in Utah was, according to health types, closed for an imminent health hazard in response to a foodborne illnesses outbreak and ongoing illness connected to this establishment and the following violations:

Food employees worked in the establishment while ill.
An employee did not wash hands when changing gloves.
An employee removed a loaf of bread from the pan with bare hands.
Fresh bread is being stored on the dirty dish drain board.
An employee beverage is stored next to establishment food in the walk in cooler.
The vent in the walk in cooler is not properly repaired to be easily cleanable.
Fan covers in the walk-in cooler are dirty.
Food equipment is not being air dried before being nested together.
The mop is not hung to air dry.
Bread sticks in the walk in freezer are not covered to prevent contamination.
Food is being stored on the floor.

Planning for next food scare top priority for Ireland’s new food safety head

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Food scares will always come and go, whether it’s horse meat, dioxins in pork or BSE. But when the next crisis arrives, there will be a new face leading the response at the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

Dr Pamela Byrne (right, exactly as shown) became chief executive of the agency in March, taking over from Prof Alan Reilly. The environmental toxicologist from Cork is the first woman to head the authority but she won’t feel outnumbered because 75 per cent of her staff are female.

There are about 80 people working in the agency but she has received sanction from the Department of Health to fill several vacancies that remained unfilled because of the State recruitment embargo.

She says her job is to protect consumers’ health and that ensuring that all food ingredients are traceable is a key part of this. “Traceability within food business systems is going to be critically important,” she says.

“With globalisation of the food supply chain, we have ingredients coming from a number of different sources. We have products coming in from a number of different sources. And we have a lot of products going out.

“With the intended expansion of the food industry, it’s going to be really important that robust traceability systems are in place. And it’s also going to help us in terms of understanding where there might be new and emerging risks.”

The value of food and drink exports has grown from €7.1 billion in 2009 to €10.5 billion but Byrne says this growth also presents challenges. “As anything gets bigger there’s always going to be a need to make sure that those systems are fit for purpose. Food businesses are sourcing ingredients from all over the world and they must make sure their suppliers are reputable.” Exotic tastes But with increasingly exotic tastes being catered for, isn’t it impossible to ensure that all 21 ingredients in one recipe, for example, can be traced back to source and vouched for? “No, I don’t think it’s impossible,” she says. “A reputable food business operator who is sourcing ingredients from multiple sources all over the world should put in the systems to make sure that they are convinced of the reputable nature of every supplier.”

She says the horse meat crisis heightened everyone’s awareness of what can go wrong in the food industry.

So where will the next food scare come from? The authority is working with its European counterparts in investigations into the substitution of lower-value fish species for higher-value species, and the passing off of lower-quality honey as manuka honey.

Byrne also says her agency and the Department of Agriculture are leading a drive to reduce outbreaks of the food-poisoning bacterium campylobacter and are bringing chicken producers, processors and retailers together to do this.

In other Irish news, 15 enforcement orders – 14 closures and one prohibition — were served on food businesses in May, the highest number of closures in one month so far this year.

Dr Pamela Byrne, Chief Executive, FSAI warns that the legal onus is on food businesses to act responsibly and ensure that the food they serve and sell is safe to eat at all times. She states that every Closure Order undermines the confidence consumers should expect to have in the safety of the food they eat. This has negative implications not only for the premises involved, but for the wider food industry.

“Most food businesses follow high standards and are compliant with food safety legislation. However, inspectors continue to encounter cases where consumers’ health is jeopardised through a failure to comply with food safety and hygiene requirements,” says Dr Byrne says. “There can be no excuse for such breaches and negligent practices. They are avoidable when food businesses have proper food safety management systems in place.”

Going public: Seven people struck by campy in UK but public health body refuses to name restaurant it closed down

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Wales Online reports that a public health body says it will not name a Cardiff restaurant at the centre of a food poisoning outbreak.

Public Health Wales says it is “satisfied” that the situation – which led to seven people being confirmed with the campylobacter infection – has been dealt with and there is “no risk to public health.”

The victims ate at the restaurant during the weekend of May 16, and two people are also suspected to have the infection.

At the end of last week, Public Health Wales, the Regulatory Service for Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend councils, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and the Food Standards Agency said they were working together to investigate an outbreak of campylobacter with links to the restaurant.

The restaurant is not being named despite the fact that new laws require all premises dealing with food to openly display their food hygiene ratings.

Facebook user Claire Drewen said: “That is wrong! The public have a right to know. Public Health Wales should release the name. Maybe people would like to avoid the restaurant when it reopens.”

But Greg Cannon said: “Why can’t we have an intelligent debate rather than scaremongering? There is probably a very good legal as well as commercial argument for not naming; but in the age of social media all it takes is one Facebook or Twitter post and the name is known. PHW might avoid the legal case and the public still get the information they think they need.”

9 sick with campy: Wales (mystery) restaurant closed after outbreak

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Douglas Powell

A Cardiff restaurant has been closed after an outbreak of food poisoning.

Seven people with confirmed campylobacter infection and two people with suspected infection ate at the restaurant during the weekend of May 16, Public Health Wales (PHW) confirmed.

Chipotle near Columbia University closed by NYC department of health

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Chipotle and Whole Foods both have a track record of bad food safety and BS public relations.

Sure I’d indulge my pregnant wife six years ago in Kansas and go on late night Chipotle runs – because it was close and I wasn’t pregnant, she was – but I’d never eat there.

Those companies sure know how to extract a buck.

The New York City Health Department closed the Chipotle at Broadway and West 111th Street this week, with the fast-food outpost not expected to open again until Friday, staff said.

The department slapped the eatery with violations for improper refrigeration and evidence of flies, after inspectors visited the restaurant Monday to find its walk-in refrigerator had broken down that same day, employees and DOH officials said.

A staffer, who declined to give her name, said she didn’t expect it to be up and running again until Friday.

The Health Department found cold food being stored above the required 41 degrees, insufficient refrigeration equipment and no means of evaluating the temperature of foods during “cooking, cooling, reheating and holding,” according to its report.

It also found evidence of flies in the food and “non-food areas,” and that the facility was not sufficiently vermin-proof.

Food was also found to be “adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded [properly],” the department said.

Chipotle must pass a second inspection in order to reopen, and a health department spokesman could not immediately say when it was scheduled.

81 now sickened with Salmonella at UK pub

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Douglas Powell

There have now been 81 people who have taken ill after eating at the Anson Farm on Teesside Industrial Estate last month.

Of that number, 35 have tested positive for salmonella – four more since Monday.

All those who have tested positive contracted the bug before the pub put in a series of control measures requested by PHE and Stockton Council environmental health officers in the week commencing May 18, confirmed a PHE spokesperson.

Both PHE and environmental health are continuing to investigate possible sources of the outbreak.

barfblog

safe food from farm to fork

Category Archives: Restaurant Inspection