Tag Archives: Australia

83 sickened with Salmonella; Aussie bakery fined $12K plus; good on ya, NSW Food Authority

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The NSW Food Authority has successfully prosecuted the former Director of a Bankstown bakery over a foodborne illness outbreak which saw 83 people fall ill with Salmonella food poisoning, 20 of them hospitalised, last January.

The matter was heard in the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court last month, with the Magistrate finding the former Director of Bankstown Bakehouse guilty of four charges including; selling unsafe food, unsafe handling of raw egg products, unclean equipment and the failure to ensure food handlers had adequate skills and knowledge about food safety.

The former company Director was fined a total of $12,000 plus ordered to pay the prosecution’s costs.

“This is a significant prosecution for the Food Authority and sends a clear message to all retail food outlets that you will face enforcement action, and in some cases, prosecution, if you breach the Food Standards Code,” said the Authority’s CEO, Polly Bennett.

“It is the responsibility of every food business to ensure that the food they serve is safe to eat.

“The charge of failing to ensure adequate knowledge and skills of food handlers is an important reminder that competent food handlers play an important role in preventing outbreaks of foodborne illness. The introduction of the requirement for Food Safety Supervisor certification by the NSW Government in October 2011, aimed at addressing poor food handling practices, is a significant step in the right direction.

“This means employees are adequately trained in safe food handling practices, including the importance of hygiene and sanitising equipment to prevent cross-contamination – the main ingredient for spreading foodborne illnesses,” Ms Bennett said.

The Bankstown Bakehouse foodborne illness outbreak has led the Food Authority to work jointly with another local government to raise the level of food safety awareness at hot bread shops.

Australian PM ‘alright now’ after stomach bug

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Julia Gillard has been unable to identify the cause of a stomach bug which sparked her withdrawal from high-end talks in New York but insists she is fit ahead of an appearance on the world stage.

“All I can tell you is one other person on the travelling party got struck down by the same thing so we don’t quite know if that means we ate something the same or it’s a virus, but I’m alright now.”

The prime minister was unable to attend three of her four scheduled official engagements on Monday, including a reception hosted by United States President Barack Obama.

KFC takes disabled girl back to court in Australia

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Fast-food giant KFC has appealed against the $8 million damages payout awarded to a young girl who was left severely brain damaged from salmonella poisoning after eating a KFC chicken twister.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the company is also trying to force Monika Samaan and her family to pay its legal costs from her 2009 court hearing, which are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Monika, then seven and now 14, became seriously ill after eating the chicken wrap at the Villawood KFC in 2005, suffering brain damage that has left her confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak.

KFC denied it was responsible, challenging the family’s claim during a four-week trial.

But the hearing exposed a series of poor hygiene practices at the Villawood store.

In April, Justice Stephen Rothman found in favour of the family, ordering KFC to pay the Samaan family $8 million in compensation, much of which will be used to pay for Monika’s lifelong medical care.

But lawyers for KFC told the NSW Supreme Court today that they have formally lodged their appeal submissions.

The court heard that the fast-food chain had a three-pronged appeal, including “the failure to consider evidence”, an “error in the judge’s factual findings” and the weight given to certain evidence.

A lawyer for the Samaan family criticised KFC’s appeal submissions, describing them as “an amorphous restatement” of what was said during the trial.

The lawyer for KFC denied this.

Australian animal rights group uses food safety to combat kangaroo consumption

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There was this one time, Chapman and I went to Australia and New Zealand, and at a dinner in Melbourne, he thought it would be adventurous to order kangaroo.

Tasted like deer.

Now that I live in Brisbane, kangaroo meat is fairly easy to find; I just have no interest in it.

And like any other food, kangaroo is prone to contamination.

ABC reports that three years after Russia banned kangaroo meat after finding high levels of bacterial contamination, animal rights groups say there are still problems with hygiene in supermarket meat.

Some of the tests show high levels of E. coli.

The kangaroo industry says the tests are not scientific and it claims animal rights groups are extremists.

Animal rights groups are using the hygiene issue as a weapon to try and close down the industry, worth $75 million a year.

As part of their campaign, the animal rights groups purchased kangaroo meat for human consumption from Coles, Woolworths and IGA supermarkets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and had the samples tested in an independent laboratory.

Eight of the 26 kangaroo samples tested positive for the bacteria salmonella and 11 samples showed relatively high levels of E. coli bacteria.

The Kangaroo Industry Association says the laboratory results are not scientific because there is no way of knowing how the meat was transported from the supermarkets to the laboratory or how long it took to get there, and no independent scrutiny of the process.

Associate Professor Vitali Sintchenko says that illness from eating kangaroo meat is extremely rare, adding, “We haven’t seen any cases of food poisoning from – that we know of in New South Wales in the last five or six years coming from kangaroo meat.”

The kangaroo industry also claims there has never been a recorded case of food poisoning from kangaroo meat in Australia. Now the industry is lobbying the Russians to reopen the meat trade. But last month, Animal Liberation took their lab results to Russia to try to persuade authorities there to continue the ban.

Drunk Australian arrested after eating someone else’s pie

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That’s my pie.

The Southland Times reports a drunk Australian man was arrested for disorderly behavior after he went into a Queenstown bakery and ate another customer’s pie.

The man, 33, who refused to give police his details, was taken to the police station, where he vomited on arrival.

Sergeant Mark Gill said considering the amount of tourists that came through Queenstown at this time of the year, the number of drunk-related incidents sounded a bit worse than it was.

Gill said there was always going to be these sorts of problems, but Australians "as a rule" were generally no worse than New Zealanders or anyone else.

Australian bakery fined $12K food safety breaches

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The Canberra courts are on a roll, first convicting a cafe for serving Salmonella and now fining a bakery $12,000 for breaches of food safety laws.

The bakery in Charnwood is the latest Canberra food outlet to be convicted in the ACT Magistrates Court for having poor food handling standards and a dirty kitchen.

The court heard since the charges were laid last year the owners have spent more than $100,000 on a renovation and have improved their practices to meet the ACT’s legal guidelines.

The court heard on the day of the inspection the kitchen had been found with dirt, flour and grease caked on various items.

A batch of pies had also been out of the oven and not refrigerated for more than six hours.

Scientology for food; biodynamic almonds recalled for Salmonella

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Biodynamic agriculture could be batshit crazy, what with the filling and burying of shit in cow horns.

But I’m not judging.

I am judging why a major Australian retailer would carry biodynamic almonds.

That’s crazy.

Woolworths Ltd has recalled Macro Wholefoods Market Organic Biodynamic Almonds nationally from Woolworths Supermarkets, Safeway, Food for Less, Flemings Supermarkets and Thomas Dux Grocers due to Salmonella contamination. Food contaminated with Salmonella may cause illness if consumed. Consumers should not eat this product and should return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Any consumers concerned about their health should seek medical advice.

Salmonella? Here? In Australian cantaloupe?

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In 2006, 36 people were confirmed stricken with Salmonella Saintpaul in Australia linked to cantaloupe (rockmelon).

Apparently a lot of Australians don’t know that.

Dr Craig Shadbolt of the New South Wales Food Authority told a conference recently Australia had also detected listeria in rockmelons, to the surprise of many delegates within the room.

Listeria was detected within rockmelons on farms in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria over a five month period in 2010.

Stock & Land reports traceback exercises were inconclusive, but did show links to a certain growing region.

No further outbreaks were detected once the harvest from that region was over.

Mr Shadbolt said the incident highlighted the need for Australian farmers to incorporate fruit and vegetable tracking mechanisms on their farms.

In response to the US listeria outbreak, the Australian melon industry is also commencing a project to understand the level of food safety practices on farms and educate growers.

How best to do that apparently remains unknown.

Salmonella? Here? In Australian cantaloupe?***

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In 2006, 36 people were confirmed stricken with Salmonella Saintpaul in Australia linked to cantaloupe (rockmelon).

Apparently a lot of Australians don’t know that.

Dr Craig Shadbolt of the New South Wales Food Authority told a conference recently Australia had also detected listeria in rockmelons, to the surprise of many delegates within the room.

Listeria was detected within rockmelons on farms in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria over a five month period in 2010.

Stock & Land reports traceback exercises were inconclusive, but did show links to a certain growing region.

No further outbreaks were detected once the harvest from that region was over.

Mr Shadbolt said the incident highlighted the need for Australian farmers to incorporate fruit and vegetable tracking mechanisms on their farms.

In response to the US listeria outbreak, the Australian melon industry is also commencing a project to understand the level of food safety practices on farms and educate growers.

How best to do that apparently remains unknown.

Is food safety suffering because of Australian grocery duopoly?

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Food safety is always the top priority of a retailer – when talking to the press. It’s usually different on the ground.

A reader says quality assurance staff at many food providers are being sacrificed for the bottom line, insisted upon by the two primary food retailers in Australia – Coles and Woolworths.

According to The Age (the newspaper in Melbourne) suppliers to Woolworths claim they have been given two weeks to cut their prices by up to 10 per cent or have their goods removed from shelves — with no commitment from the supermarket giant to lower prices to consumers.

The squeeze on suppliers — described by one of them as "the most brutal negotiations… in my three decades in the industry" — is being mounted by Woolworths to help fund its price war with Coles.

The primary beneficiary of this price war appears to be the media, with fancy adverts popping up all over.

Woolworths spokeswoman Claire Kimball said there was no two-week completion cut-off in its negotiations and "nothing unusual happening at the moment … When we put our position to vendors we often ask them to come back to us in two weeks with their response. However it is a negotiation and this often necessitates ongoing discussions."