Tag Archives: inspection

Hundreds of dead roaches in Florida restaurant

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Several hundred dead roaches in cabinets at the Mi Fiesta Mexicana restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, seemed like a good reason to close the place.

Jacksonville.com reports that on Wednesday, a safety and sanitation inspector with the state’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants issued the emergency closure order for after finding “several hundred” dead roaches inside cabinets and other equipment throughout the restaurant at 1177 Park Ave.

In April, an inspector issued an emergency closure order for the same restaurant after finding more than 160 dead and live roaches throughout the establishment.

Last week’s inspection was the result of a complaint received by the state agency. Mi Fiesta Mexicana reopened Thursday morning after a follow-up inspection yielded zero violations. Neither inspection, however, was a full inspection of the restaurant, according to the restaurant’s inspection history, a public record.

Instead, both were partial inspections, with the inspector focusing on the problems named in the complaint.

What do USDA inspectors do? Undercover video shutters another dairy cull slaughterhouse in Calif.

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Federal regulators shut down a Central California slaughterhouse Monday after receiving undercover video showing dairy cows — some unable to walk — being repeatedly shocked and shot before being slaughtered.

In a few hours, someone in the industry will say, this is an isolated incident and they practice the highest standards of animal welfare and safety.

It’s a tired tune.

People realize the soundbites are meaningless – especially compared to graphic video. It’s like all those food types who say they have really safe food and everyone is worthy of trust and faith, yet outbreaks manage to happen weekly. Industry and academia should be judged by the data they bring to the table, not platitudes.

According to the Associated Press, officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects meat facilities, suspended operations at Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford, Calif., which slaughters cows when they lose their value as milk producers.

The USDA received hours of videotape Friday from Compassion Over Killing, an animal welfare group, which said its undercover investigator was employed by the slaughterhouse and made the video over a two-week period in June.

Four minutes of excerpts the animal welfare group provided to The Associated Press showed cows being prepared for slaughter. One worker appears to be suffocating a cow by standing on its muzzle after a gun that injects a bolt into the animal’s head had failed to render it unconscious. In another clip, a cow is still conscious and flailing as a conveyor lifts it by one leg for transport to an area where the animals’ throats are slit for blood draining.

"The horror caught on camera is sickening," said Erica Meier, executive director of Compassion Over Killing, based in Washington, D.C. "It’s alarming that this is not only a USDA-inspected facility but a supplier to the USDA."

Within hours of seeing the video, the USDA’s Office of Inspector General sent investigators who found evidence of "egregious inhumane handling and treatment of livestock."

The USDA had at least two inspectors stationed at the site, and federal officials, when asked whether there was evidence the inspectors had neglected their duties, said the investigation is ongoing.

The videos show workers pulling downed cows by their tails and kicking them in an apparent attempt to get them to stand and walk to slaughter. Others shoot downed cows in the head over and over as the cows thrash on the ground. In one instance, the video shows workers trying to get cattle to back out of a chute while repeatedly spraying them with water and shocking them.

"It’s a good sign that the USDA is taking this seriously, but I want to see what comes next," said Meier, adding the video will be posted on the organization’s website Tuesday. "The footage clearly speaks for itself, but this is not an isolated incident. Investigation after investigation of these places is revealing cruelty."

In early 2008, the Humane Society of the United States released video documenting animal abuse at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. of Chino, Calif., secretly shot by an undercover employee.

That $100-million-a-year company does not exist anymore – brought down by someone using an over-the-counter video recording device. USDA inspectors were at that plant as well and didn’t notice anything. ?In April 2009, Cargill Beef announced it had implemented a third-party video-auditing system that would operate 24 hours a day at its U.S. beef plants to enhance the company’s animal welfare protection systems. All of Cargill’s U.S. plants were expected to have the program in place by the end of 2009.

In Feb. 2010, Cargill announced it would expand its remote video auditing program to monitor food-safety procedures within processing plants.

Slaughterhouses are only as good as their worst employee and can be shuttered by the latest hire. Forget the rhetoric and take control of the issue: all slaughterhouses should have their own video documentation and walk the talk.

Rotting bear meat at Fredericton restaurant nets $400 fine

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Eight months after rotting bear meat was discovered in a freezer at the Mandarin Palace Restaurant in Fredericton, New Brunswick (that’s in Canada), the owner has been fined $400 in court.

CBC News reports that Le Binh Tina Tu, 61, who owns the Mandarin Palace, pleaded guilty to charges after the bear meat was discovered in a cooler at the Chinese restaurant during a routine inspection by the Department of Health on Dec. 20, 2011.

An inspection record posted on the government’s website on Dec. 21 said, "Food must be purchased from an approved source. Wild animals are not approved."

Twelve cafes and restaurants hit with closure in Ireland

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 “… There continues to be food business operators who put consumers’ health at risk by not complying with their legal obligations for food safety and hygiene.

"Food business operators must recognise that the legal onus is on them to be responsible and ensure that the food they serve is safe to eat."

That’s professor Alan Reilly, chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, describing the monthly inspection results as "extremely disappointing".

Twelve companies were hit with closure orders after being found with such poor food safety and hygiene standards they were deemed to be of grave or immediate danger to the public.

One cash-and-carry was served with a prohibition order, meaning it was banned from selling food found to have been dangerous to consumers.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said the 13 orders represented a fourfold increase from the previous month, making July one of the highest ever for enforcements over the last decade.

When you dance, I can really love, or keep your swap meet at the proper temperature

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In the same way that Chapman owes me for introducing him to Neil Young in the 2000s, I owe it to my high school girlfriend, Sue Baker, for introducing me, in 1978. This was her favorite song.

And if you’re going to a swap meet in Nevada, get the food safety right.

The location is J & J Swap Meet on East Charleston where inspectors found problems with the temperature of just about everything. The violations are at the swap meet snack bar which was shut down with 58 demerits. It’s really important that food is kept hot or cold enough to be safe. Otherwise, bacteria begins to grow and no one wants to eat that.

Nosestretcher alert: does washing lettuce make it safer? Do inspections make restaurants safer?

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There’s some myths floating around New Brunswick after an outbreak of E. coli O157 was linked to the Jungle Jim’s restaurant in Miramichi.

Dr. Eilish Cleary, New Brunswick’s chief medical officer of health said, “if a piece of lettuce is contaminated with E. coli but is thoroughly washed before being served, the risk of passing along the bacteria to consumers is greatly reduced."

No, that contamination needs to be prevented on the farm and through the supply system. Washing don’t do much.

When the illnesses were linked to the Miramichi restaurant in May, owner Brian Geneau said Jungle Jim’s has had several health inspections and has always received green ratings, which indicate a top level of compliance on the Department of Health’s color-coded inspection system.

Inspections don’t mean much but can help bolster the overall culture of food safety. I’d be more interested in your lettuce purchasing practices.

Handwashing with soap and paper towels matters; water temperature doesn’t

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There is no evidence that water temperature makes a difference in reducing microbial loads when washing hands. Two scientific reviews have reached the same conclusion.

So says wannabe broadcaster, potential Johnny Fever look-a-like and Rutgers University food safety professor, Don Schaffner, who continues:

An article in The Forecaster, a newspaper published in Maine (that’s in New England) was dramatically entitled, In tepid water: Many fast-food restaurants don’t comply with Maine health requirement, contends,

"The biggest burger chains on the planet fail to consistently provide … water temperatures needed to facilitate sanitary hand washing – despite state and federal requirements that they do so."

There is no evidence that water temperature makes a difference in reducing microbial loads.

The reporter "went into the restrooms of 14 area restaurants operated by McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to check restroom water temperature compliance." While that might pass for investigative journalism, I would be much more interested if they had measured grill temperatures, or cold holding temperatures in those same restaurants. If the reporter was in the bathroom rather than the kitchen, I’d be more interested in the availability of soap or paper towels. Don’t get me started on hot-air hand dryers.

"There are no statistics that demonstrate how many illnesses are caused by improper hand washing."

Not so. Jack Guzewich and Marianne Ross have summarized the risks related to food contamination by workers and the appropriate interventions including handwashing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has clearly substantiated the role bare-hand contact by a food worker can play in disease transmission.

If you want to hear more about the intricacies of handwashing, water temperature and disease reduction, please check out episode 20 of the podcast I do with Ben Chapman called Food Safety Talk. Subscribe in iTunes or via RSS.

Oh, and one more thing. Buried near the middle of the story is the off-hand observation that "some of the restaurants have not been inspected at all within the last year.” That may actually be worth reporting about.

Fewer laws, more leaders: food safety culture key to, uh, food safety

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“I don’t think we need more laws, we need more leaders.”

That’s one of several gems offered up by David Theno, buried in a too-long piece about food service food safety by Carolyn Surh of QSR.

An increased focus on raw produce safety has changed the way restaurants handle certain foods. For instance, the FDA now considers raw cut tomatoes a potentially hazardous food, in the same category as meats, seafood, eggs, and poultry.

For operations serving raw produce, well-known safety precautions such as storing or holding foods at appropriate temperatures, maintaining good personal hygiene, and avoiding cross-contamination are especially important. Even more vital, experts say, is sourcing a safe food supply chain.

For restaurants serving fresh, raw produce, ensuring that growers and processors are taking every precaution to avoid contamination can be difficult.

“On the supply side, one of the biggest risks today is produce,” Theno says. “There are many people who are trying to do a better job, so I don’t want to demean the [produce] industry, but I can tell you there are a lot of people who are not doing as well as others.”

Even the simplest food-safety practices continue to challenge restaurants where turnover rates are high and the staff tends to be young and inexperienced. Safety protocols and governmental regulations provide a framework by which to train employees, but the key is strong leadership, Theno says.

“How often is an inspector in a facility?” Theno asks. “Regulations give you a minimum set of standards, but if you’re going to make food safety happen, it’s a leadership thing. I don’t think we need more laws, we need more leaders.”

Indeed, strong management is a constant that can be applied over the vast number of localities that monitor food safety. Throughout the country, there are approximately 3,500 state and local health jurisdictions. Subject to guidelines that are adopted differently from county to county, foodservice operators know just how complex multi-state compliance can be.

With so much variance from location to location, on top of daily pressures like labor and supply chain, Theno has seen the best results in organizations where management places food safety at the top of the list.

“Where it’s done exceptionally well it’s because the leadership really owns these matters—they walk the talk, they live it,” Theno says. “Every day they ask questions that show their team that food safety is as important if not more important than everything else they do every day in the restaurant. When that leadership philosophy is present, I find their restaurants are in much better shape.”

 

God don’t have much to do with it; food safety outbreaks are not flukes of faith; buying might be

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A cantaloupe farmer linked to the listeria-related deaths of 36 people and the illnesses of at least 146 in 2011 says the outbreak was “something Mother Nature did. We didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Eric Jensen, the fourth-generation produce grower who runs what’s left of Colorado-based Jensen Farms with his brother Ryan, told the Dallas Morning News, “We’re not selling anything,” adding that he had to lay off his staff of 15 in December. “We’re just sitting still right now. We hope to figure out a way to come out of it. We’ve got four generations worth of work.”

Whatever your god or belief, I’ve yet to see divine intervention as a cause of foodborne illness. Instead, illnesses and outbreaks are frighteningly consistent in their underlying causes: a culmination of a small series of mistakes that, over time, results in illness and death. After-the-fact investigations usually conclude, why didn’t this happen earlier, with all the mistakes going on?

This is no different from other failures such as BP, Bhopal and the space shuttle Challenger: technological sophistication is easily superseded by the vagaries of human behavior and belief.

So while Jensen Farms languishes in bankruptcy and self-affirming fairy-tales, and distributors and retailers ask themselves, why did we rely on such lousy food safety assurances, California growers are trying to develop an industry-wide, mandatory food safety plan.

But based on early indications, California growers are setting up a flawed system that promotes self-satisfaction and soundbites over safety.

Tying a brand or commodity – lettuce, tomatoes, meat — to the lowest common denominator of government inspections is a recipe for failure. The Pinto automobile also met government standards – didn’t help much in the court of public opinion.

The best growers, processors and retailers will far exceed minimal government standards, will proactively test to verify their food safety systems are working, will transparently publicize those results and will brag about their excellent food safety by marketing at retail so consumers can actually choose safe food.

Love letters from FDA: fishy fish, bad buns

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It’s like a game show: This Week in Warning Letters from FDA.

Take your chances, make mistakes, let the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lay out your food failings in public view.

Seafood was a repeat offender, and some others:

• General Tuna Corporation, based in the Philippines, cited for having a HACCP plan that really sucked;

• Chung’s and Son Company of Temple Hills, Maryland, cited for having a HACCP plan that really sucked, your vegetable and shrimp egg roll is adulterated, in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health;

• Custom Seafood Services Inc. of Seattle, Washington, cited for having a HACCP plan that really sucked, your Dungeness crab sections and King crab legs and claws are adulterated;

• Concept Asia Food Service, another Seattle fish processor with a lousy HACCP plan,
your sushi roll products, including the salmon roll, eel roll, tai roll, imitation crab roll, and tuna roll, are adulterated

• Sugar Bakers, Inc. of Catonsville, Maryland, you have lousy handwashing trash all over the place, and poor storage choices;

• Panaderia El Angel of Arlington, Washington, a Hispanic bakery, you have serious violations of Good Manufacturing Practices, your products are all adulterated;

• K-Brand Farms of Woodridge, New York, you have serious violations of the Prevention of Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) in Shell Eggs During Production, Storage, and Transportation regulation (the shell egg regulation), your shell eggs are adulterated; and,

• Societe Fromagere de Bouvron of Bouvron, France, you produce cheese with substandard equipment.

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