Tag Archives: fail

Hundreds fail food safety inspections across South Yorkshire, UK

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Almost 800 businesses across South Yorkshire have failed food safety inspections in the past two-and-a-half years.

zero.failFigures from the Food Standards Agency show 764 firms across the region are currently listed as failing to meet the minimum three out of five-star rating in inspections.

More than 270 businesses in Rotherham were not up to standard, along with 195 in Sheffield, 167 in Doncaster and 127 in Barnsley.

Food inspectors rated 27 companies as zero stars – requiring them to make ‘urgent improvements’ to their hygiene standards.

Four Sheffield businesses – Chikoo’s Takeaway on London Road, Koh-I-Noor on Handsworth Road, Wincobank Deli on Wincobank Avenue and Charley’s Pantry on Wostenholm Road – have received zero-star ratings ordering urgent improvements to be carried out.

Chikoo’s was found to have evidence of mice in its cellar. A spokesman for Chikoo’s said since the July inspection which resulted in a zero rating, improvements have been made and a subsequent inspection has taken place.

Michael Bluff, principal officer for Sheffield Council’s food safety team, said the business was re-inspected on December 17 and has made ‘significant improvements’, with a new rating to be issued in early January.

Rashid Mahmood, owner of Koh-I-Noor for around 18 years, said standards have improved since the inspection which resulted in the zero rating in September.

Inspectors had found food in a walk-in chiller did not have use-by dates attached, while food handlers were observed not washing their hands correctly.

Mr Mahmood said there had been subsequent visits by food inspectors and the restaurant was hopefully of having a higher rating reinstated in the near future. He said he had not been on site when the September inspection occurred and said he understands the restaurant will soon return to its normal high rating.

“We have never had any complaints from anywhere,” he said.

“Everything is spotless and it is all nice and tidy. I’m really strict with my staff and it will never happen again.”

Fail; bad food advice on kibbeh, snow and deer; mocked by moose cleanse

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From MTV, the network that brought The Hills and Jersey Shore but doesn’t actually play music videos anymore, comes Buckwild, a so-called reality show based in West Virginia. As part of an initiation, one character willingly ate raw deer meat.

Fail.

NPR published a blog saying the secret to a good kibbeh, a Lebanese dish combining raw meat, bulgur and onion, is freshness and trust.

“Freshness remains key to good, safe raw kibbeh. One must be certain of the meat’s provenance. … Of course, grinding the meat yourself at home is a surer way to know your meat is safe.”

Tell that to sick people in separate kibbeh-linked outbreaks in Ontario and Michigan.

Fail.

NPR also published a piece claiming that snow is a fab ingredient for a variety of dishes, some cooked and some raw, like New England maple syrup on snow.cooler.feb.13snow. Snow makes a great cooler when electricity is unavailable (or when it is). I’ll stick to ice from chlorinated or tested water.

And then there’s the moose cleanse.

Did you know that pound for pound, the moose is the leanest ruminant on earth, begins a breathlessly satirical piece in The Atlantic.

Did the author know that all ruminants are natural hosts for shiga-toxin producing E. coli?

“A moose cleanse is a natural way to release those toxins, to give your body a break. It’s pure, it’s simple, and it’s natural. A moose is both in the forest and of the forest. And after just a few days on the moose cleanse, you will be too. …

“When you moose, you’ll be able to process way more birch through bark stripping than you could ever just eat at one time. This way you maximize the nutritional benefits of ingesting 10, even 15 pounds of roughage every day. Without the added burden of birch digestion – which takes a lot of time and energy – your body will be free to detoxify your liver and kidneys. …

“Because moose don’t have upper front teeth, you’ll want to make sure to avoid using yours whenever possible in order to extract the maximum possible benefits from your food.”

11 sick; E. coli outbreak in Canada grows, plant wants to reopen

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With 11 people now confirmed sick from E. coli O157 linked to XL beef, and the plant wanting to reopen, the whole incident demonstrates the rise of mediocrity in Canada.

Strive to be excellently OK.

And that’s not good enough for people who got sick, especially the little kids.

And the Canadian Food Inspection Agency? They’re going to do a walk through of the plant, apparently with magic goggles that can see bacteria, as part of a “pre-resumption of operation inspection.”

This is systemic failure all around.

This is the rise of mediocrity.

The art of the fail in engineering, same for food

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The 1985 book, To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, is one of the most influential I’ve read.

I’m a huge fan of the author, Henry Petroski, the engineer and professor who at 70, is still going strong in his new book, To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure (I really need to restart writing books), reviewed in tomorrow’s New York Times.

“In May 1987 the Golden Gate Bridge had a 50th birthday party. The bridge was closed to automobile traffic so people could enjoy a walk across the spectacular span.

“Organizers expected perhaps 50,000 pedestrians to show up. Instead, by some estimates, as many as 800,000 thronged the bridge approaches. By the time 250,000 were on the bridge engineers noticed something ominous: the roadway was flattening under what turned out to be the heaviest load it had ever been asked to carry. Worse, it was beginning to sway.

“Though crowds of people do not generally walk in step, if the bridge beneath them begins to move sideways — for whatever reason — the people on it instinctively tend to fall into step the better to keep their balance,” Henry Petroski writes. “This in turn exacerbates the sideways motion of the structure, and a positive feedback loop is developed,” making matters worse and worse.

“This time disaster was averted. The authorities closed access to the bridge and tens of thousands of people, caught in pedestrian gridlock, made their way back to land, a process that for some took hours.

“The story is one of scores in “To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure,” a book that is at once an absorbing love letter to engineering and a paean to its breakdowns.

“Dr. Petroski writes, “no matter what the technology is, our best estimates of its success tend to be overly optimistic.”

“Failure is what drives the field forward.

Sometimes devices fail because they are subjected to unexpected stress, like the Golden Gate under the weight of all those people, who collectively applied far more stress than the ordinary automobile traffic the bridge was supposed to carry.

“Then there are the insulating O rings on the booster that launched the Challenger, which stiffened on an unusually cold morning in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Engineers alarmed by this issue recommended that the launch be postponed; managers overruled them.

"After the 1907 collapse of a bridge under construction in Quebec, engineers in Canada instituted a ceremony by which new graduates entering the profession received iron rings meant to remind them of their responsibilities. A variation of this practice is spreading in the United States, even as this country struggles to enhance its engineering success in the world economy."

Which would explain when I ask would-be engineers from around the world about their iron-ring, they look at me funny. In Canada, engineers proudly wear their iron rings on their pinky. That’s how you know they’re engineers.

Food safety has enough failures. Learn from failure.