Tag Archives: Fat Duck

Poisoned diners start lawsuit against ‘unapologetic’ celebrity chef Blumenthal; response called ‘pathetic’

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The UK Health Protection Agency report into an outbreak of norovirus that felled 529 diners at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant on Sept. 10, 2009, clearly identified poor reporting and employees working while sick as contributing factors to the outbreak.

Blumenthal decided to ignore this and take to the Interwebs with his own revisionist version of what went wrong earlier this year.

This has upset some of the victims, who are now taking Blumenthal to court.

This morning, London’s Daily Mail online reports many are furious that Mr Blumenthal has refused to pay a penny in compensation, and at least two legal firms have initiated legal action.

Television presenter Jim Rosenthal, who was sickened, called Blumenthal’s response, “pathetic.”

“He has basically attempted to re-write the HPA report and its conclusions in his favour. It is pathetic and a complete PR disaster. There isn’t even a hint of apology.

“At first I was extremely sympathetic to Heston Blumenthal, but the way this has been mishandled beggars belief. I could not believe what I was reading in this email – it was like we had been sent different reports. I am taking them to court and a lot of other people are too. A simple apology might have ended all this a long time ago.”

Mr Blumenthal’s spokesman said:

“We are reviewing the report, which we only received on September 10, and won’t comment until we have completed that review.”

But they did comment, on Sept. 10. Clueless.

Someone’s looking for some advertizing dollars: UK’s Independent says norovirus at Fat Duck was ‘a freakish occurrence;’ check toilets for cleanliness

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I first went to London in 1993. I was once again a graduate student, someone looked after the older two girls, and we took 6-week-old Braunwynn.

I loved to get a morning coffee – which cost about $895.58 pounds or something outrageous — and reading the broadsheet newspaper, The Independent.

About that time I also realized, The Independent sorta sucked.

Rob Sharp writes in today’s Independent that Robin Hancock – not the musician, but the proprietor of Wright Brothers, an oyster wholesaler which supplies top restaurants – says the risks are overblown. In fact, he says, oysters should be enjoyed because they are full of vitamins, iron, calcium and are low in cholesterol.

"I would like to set the record straight," he says. "food poisoning from oysters is something from the past. We sell four to five tonnes of oysters a week – that’s nearly 60,000 or 2.5 million a year – and we get maybe four or five cases of food poising in that time. What happened at the Fat Duck was somewhat of a freakish occurrence." Several thousand fishermen breathe a sigh of relief.

Fat Duck was 529. That’s more than four or five.

Hancock recommends the old adage of "checking to see if the toilets are clean" when venturing into a restaurant; general levels of hygiene can be a useful clue.

Not useful.

“We should not make too much of the viral thing; it is exceptionally rare. Again, I think the staff at the Fat Duck – where they are obsessed with a clinical, almost scientific preparation of food and are more than aware of these processes – were incredibly unlucky."

Or incredibly sloppy.

Fat Duck outbreak redux — food safety infosheet version

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This week’s food safety infosheet, directed at foodservice staff is attached here. The infosheet focuses on an outbreak at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant which happened earlier this year. While norovirus illnesses were initially linked to patrons who ate shell???sh, health authorities believe that ill staff members handling other food also contributed to the length and scope of the outbreak.

Michelin Stars don’t mean anything when it comes to food safety culture.

Download the Fat Duck food safety infosheet here.

Health agency reports Fat Duck was slow to report food scare; celebrity chef says everything’s fine; 529 barfing diners disagree

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Celebrity chef, molecular gastrologest and Alton Brown-Mats Sundin love child, Heston Blumenthal may be delusional. Or illiterate. He certainly didn’t read the report from the U.K. Health Protection Agency which was released this morning.

“Several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including: delayed response to the incident; staff working when they should have been off sick and using the wrong environmental cleaning products. Delays in notification of illness may have affected the ability of the investigation to identify the exact reason for the norovirus contamination.”

Blumenthal responded in an e-mailed release:

“We are glad that the report has finally been published and draws a conclusion to the closure of the Fat Duck and more importantly that the norovirus has been identified as the cause and not due to any lapse in our strict food preparation processes. We were affected by this virus during a national outbreak of what is an extremely common and highly contagious virus. The restaurant has been open as normal since March 12 and I would like to reassure our guests that they can continue to visit us with total confidence.”

Sourcing food is the chef’s job; serving raw oysters is silly; delaying the reporting of illnesses is dumb; sick employees working and furthering the spread of the virus is stupid. No confidence at all.
 

Celebrity chef dumbass: Fat Duck felled by norovirus in raw oysters; ‘weaknesses in procedures – delayed response to incident’

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Chapman occasionally comes up with a good line. Usually, I do all the work on a piece (at least in my mind), and he’ll put in one sentence, but it will be the one that is remembered.

Why didn’t I think of that?

Chapman described celebrity chef and molecular gastrologest Heston Blumenthal (below, right) as the love child of Alton Brown and longtime Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player Mats Sundin (right).

Why didn’t I think of that.

Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant – which is consistently rated as the best in the U.K. – was the source of over 500 illnesses in early 2009. At the time, Blumenthal said, “tests for viral infections and food poisoning have proved negative and there is speculation that the winter outbreak of norovirus could be the real reason why they became sick.”

Way to blame the consumer, those paying hundreds of pounds for the privilege of barfing.

The U.K. Health Protection Agency published a report on the outbreak today that concluded:

*       There was a large outbreak of food poisoning among diners at the Fat Duck Restaurant in January and February 2009, with more than 500 reporting illness – over 15% of those dining there during this period

*       The organism responsible was norovirus which was probably introduced via shellfish (more diners who ate shellfish dishes reported illness). Oysters were served raw; razor clams may not have been appropriately handled or cooked; tracing of shellfish to source showed evidence of contamination and there have been reports of illness in other establishments associated with oysters from the same source

*       The outbreak continued for at least six weeks (between January 6 and February 22) because of ongoing transmission at the restaurant – which may have occurred through continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both

*       Several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including: delayed response to the incident; staff working when they should have been off sick and using the wrong environmental cleaning products

*       Delays in notification of illness may have affected the ability of the investigation to identify the exact reason for the norovirus contamination

It’s the chef’s responsibility to source food from safe sources. And if the chef thinks raw shellfish is a smart thing to serve, and to have sick workers working, then, customers get what they pay for.

 

Duck and Cover: It’s Food Safety Education Month

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Watching the pronouncements and proclamations for Food Safety Education month makes me think about kids in the 1950s getting educated about nuclear bombs: Duck, Cover and Roll.

In the film, below, substitute foodborne illness for atomic bomb, and substitute consumers have a role, for duck, cover and roll.

In a month of foodborne illness, the signal of impending doom is not an air raid siren, but more likely explosive diarrhea; you might even be out playing when it comes.

The advice in Duck and Cover is as useful in protecting against radiation as the advice from various government, industry and advocacy types is in preventing foodborne illness.
 

Make customers barf, score a perfect rating

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Food safety culture is miniscule compared to food porn culture.

How is it that Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant was rated as a perfect 10 in the new edition of the Good Food Guide 2010, despite being closed for a norovirus outbreak?

Making customers barf doesn’t seem to count in the scoring system.

Good Food Guide editor and food porn aficionado Elizabeth Carter, said

"It is the most extraordinary restaurant in Britain. … It’s a destination restaurant, a place you save up to go to, and you will remember it forever."

Especially the barfing.

Could video games be a key to food handler training effectiveness?

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Food handler training, required or encouraged in various jurisdictions across North America has been demonstrated by multiple studies to have various results. Most of the published research has focused on looking at inspection results, but in 2000, researchers in Oregon (April 2009 issue of Foodborne Pathogens and Disease) explored food handler food safety knowledge.

During April–September 2000 researchers administered a 28- question survey distilled from a longer survey obtained from the Oregon Food Handler Certification Program with 407 food handlers from 67 randomly-selected restaurants.The researchers found that their participants averaged 68% on the test. Significant differences were observed between managers’ average test scores and those of line staff: 74% versus 67%, respectively, and those with Oregon food handler training scored 69%, while those without one scored 63%.

Meatloaf sang that two out of three ain’t bad, but in food safety training, retention-wise, it’s not great.

The researchers conclude that survey demonstrates a limited level of knowledge among foodhandlers about food safety and that analyzing knowledge and comparing concurrent restaurant inspection scores would strengthen the understanding of food safety in restaurants.  The results of the survey also emphasize the need for educational programs tailored to improve foodhandlers knowledge of foodborne diseases.

I’d add that it’s not like knowledge translates automatically into practice. Demonstrating knowledge change is interesting, but not nearly as important as behavior change.

Food handlers need some sort of basic training, but it’s up to their managers and organization to make sure they stay up-to-date and that they have some sort of ongoing reminders (like food safety infosheets.

Reuters reports on a strategy for training that might have some applications with food handlers — video game simulations.

Many businesses use serious videogames designed for the PC but Hilton Garden Inn (HGI) has taken the virtual training concept portable for the first time with "Ultimate Team Play".

Working with North Carolina-based game developer Virtual Heroes, HGI has created a videogame for Sony’s PSP (PlayStation Portable) that allows employees to practice their jobs before they have to interact with customers.

It has the potential to be pretty cool and useful especially if used to demonstrate the team-like nature of foodservice and risk identification, but if it’s pulled off cheaply it could look like Duck Hunt.

Stick a thermometer in cheap, stinky meat

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The quest for discounted groceries has hit the news again with South Carolina news reporter Larry Collins asking,

“Stores slash prices about 50% – 60% on meat when it is nearing the date on the packaging. But, is that food safe to eat?”

According to registered dietitian Charlotte Caperton-Kilburn, such meat is typically safe to consume as long as you cook or freeze it as soon as you bring it home… and it smells okay.

“If the meat smells even remotely strange it should be returned to the store or thrown away,” Caperton-Kilburn told the news station.

In Ireland, Darina Allen wrote in an opinion piece for the Irish Examiner that, just the other night, she found a vac-packed duck in the back of her fridge that smelled “good and high.” Rather than throw it out, she “gave it a good wash inside and out and rubbed a bit of salt into the skin and roasted it.”

Her guests said it was delicious.

Allen reminisced about life before modern conveniences like electric refrigeration and explained, “We learned from our mothers how to judge with our senses whether food was safe.” She asserted that, “in just a few years, many people have lost the ability to judge for themselves when food is safe to eat.”

While most groceries sold in the US have a date consumers can read and use, the USDA only requires manufacturers of infant formula and baby food to determine and display a “Use by” date on their products—and this is mainly for the sake of ensuring nutrient quality. The others are voluntary and only describe when the food will probably taste best. Assessing safety is still up to the consumer.

Modern technologies like stamped dates and color-changing barcodes can help consumers with that assessment, as can the senses of sight and smell. The most reliable safeguard, though, is cooking to a temperature that studies have found will effectively kill pathogens. For poultry, this is 165F.

Chefs may tell you to use your senses to figure temperature, too, but only by using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer can you know for sure.  It’s the consumer’s choice, as always, but I’d rather be sure than be positive for salmonella.
 

Fat Duck staff members worked while ill

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UK celeb chef Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant, The Fat Duck, has now been linked to over 400 illnesses. Moleculargastrologest Blumenthal, who looks like the love child of Alton Brown and Mats Sundin, reportedly had up to 16 food handlers working with norovirus symptoms at the restaurant.  Not a great idea.

The reality of the food industry is that a sick day is a day without pay and can lead to less hours. This continues to be a problem, especially with norovirus as ill food handlers are often linked to large-scale outbreaks.

Below is a food safety infosheet dedicated to the Fat Duck outrbreak.  You can download the food safety infosheet here.