Tag Archives: inspection

Rankin restaurant Cayenne gets one star for hygiene

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One of Northern Ireland’s most respected restaurants, celebrity chef Paul Rankin’s Cayenne, was awarded a rating of just one under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme.

A score of zero means "urgent improvement necessary" and the top rating of five indicates a "very good’ standard of food hygiene.

The Belfast Telegraph reports Cayenne celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2010, but in March this year the verdict from food safety officers was that "major improvement" was needed.

Manager Peter McKenna said staff at the restaurant were upset by the low rating, but insisted that the restaurant was perfectly safe and the score had nothing to do with food handling.

A new mark will not be given until at least three months after the last inspection.

Nick Wright, manager of Made In Belfast, said he is waiting for inspectors to return to his restaurant. They visited the city centre restaurant on March 5, 2010 and gave it a rating of one, which indicates the need for "major improvement."

"The only reason we received the score was for structural reasons," Mr Wright said. Zen Restaurant manager Alex Yosh, based in Adelaide Street, said while he appreciates the work done by environmental health officers, he feels the rating system can be "misleading."

Connecticut school cafeterias lack local health inspections

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Nathan Hale School in New Haven had an inspection in March that found chicken was being served to children at a temperature that can carry bacteria. Inspectors did not go back to the school to re-inspect until December, when they found the same problem.

In October 2010, local health inspectors in Meriden found rodent droppings in the cafeteria of Maloney High School, as well as dirty cabinets and other health violations. Inspectors didn’t go back last year to check to see if the problems were remedied.

In Stamford last year, nine of 32 schools did not have their cafeterias inspected, with the remaining schools inspected fewer than the three times a year required under state regulations.

Those are the findings of a team of journalists and interns reporting for the New Haven Independent.

Paul Kowalski, New Haven’s environmental health director, said, “There is no way we are meeting the state mandate on inspections. I have three sanitarians and over 1,100 food establishments to inspect.”

A review of more than 1,700 inspection reports from 103 cities and towns in 2010 found that many local health agencies, responsible for ensuring that school cafeterias are safely preparing and serving food to children, are not meeting the state Public Health Code on mandated annual inspections. Of the 38 health agencies overseeing those towns, at least half were not meeting the state requirement, the review shows.

In addition to failing to meet the required number of inspections, the review found that timely re-inspections of cafeterias cited for violations were rare.

Jamie Oliver too much food porn, not enough food safety

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Celebrity chef-type Jamie Oliver – who was a stand-out in our 2004 paper, Spot the Mistake about celebrity chefs and food safety mistakes — may be trying to rid Los Angeles of chocolate milk, but health inspectors want him to pay more attention to crap in his U.K. restaurants.

The Mail Online reports Oliver has been criticized by health inspectors after a string of customers and staff suffered food poisoning at two of his Italian restaurants.

The TV chef came under fire when inspectors uncovered a catalogue of food safety failings at his chain of Jamie’s Italian eateries.

Two customers at the Reading branch were struck down with the potentially-fatal norovirus after eating dodgy shellfish.

Staff and customers were also struck down with suspected food poisoning at his restaurant in Cambridge.

The chef – named 967th in the Sunday Times Rich List with a personal fortune of £65 million – proudly boasts he is ‘passionate’ about good food ‘no matter what’.

But inspectors threatened legal action when they discovered undercooked burgers were being served to customers at the Leeds restaurant.

Staff at his Guildford restaurant were also criticised for exposing customers to the harmful E. coli bacteria.

The failures were uncovered after inspectors carried out unannounced spot-checks at 11 restaurants between November 2009 and November last year.

Oliver’s Ministry of Food website offers a range of tips for a ‘clean and safe’ kitchen.

But at Jamie’s Italian in Cardiff, which serves up to 1,000 people every day, a health inspector warned that careless preparation of uncooked chicken was ‘significantly increasing the risk of cross-contamination’.

Peter Berry, PR Manager at Jamie Oliver Limited, said that many of the issues were from over a year ago, adding, “These points are all relatively minor and have not seriously affected the generally excellent EHO ratings which all of the restaurants in the Jamie’s Italian collection are proud to display. Jamie’s Italian also employs two full-time in-house food safety specialists to ensure the highest standards.”

Thermometers would be a useful kitchen addition. Oliver doesn’t talk about thermometers on TV.

Catfish inspection program plays politics with food safety

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Byron Truglio, the retired chief of the FDA’s Seafood Processing and Technology Policy Branch, writes:

The Food and Drug Administration is charged with protecting consumers from hazards related to seafood products sold in the United States. The success of the FDA’s seafood inspection program is showcased by the excellent level of seafood safety we enjoy. ? ?In spite of this success, the FDA takes center stage in occasional Congressional battles. Such is the case with an on-going debate about catfish inspection. Yes, at a time when most Americans want their government to tackle the big challenges, some on the Hill are seeking millions in new spending for a low risk species of fish.

Catfish, like all fish, is FDA regulated. FDA Seafood Hazardous Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) regulations hold seafood importers responsible for the seafood safety controls performed by their overseas suppliers the same way they hold domestic producers responsible. The FDA and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention consider catfish a low-risk product. There have been no reports of catfish related salmonella illnesses in the last 14 years.? ?Despite the fact that the inspection of catfish, as well as the inspection of other riskier fish products, is working quite well, some in Congress passed legislation to move catfish monitoring to the USDA.

If the plan goes forward, businesses that process multiple species would see regulatory oversight from both the FDA and the USDA. Since the USDA has yet to develop a regulatory strategy, the results will be turmoil for seafood purveyors — nonsensical redundancy over the inspection of a “low risk” product. ? ?The new duplicate rules will not come cheap. The Government Accountability Office puts the price tab at $30 million just to get USDA up and running. It has identified the program as wasteful and recommends that it be scrapped.? ?The inspiration for this rush to spend $30 million (to start) of hard earned taxpayer dollars on a non-existent problem is a group of lobbyists and a trade association representing elements of the American catfish producers. This group has bullied Congress into moving catfish regulation to the USDA, making it harder for their foreign competitors to enter the US market.

This move is a win for US catfish producers, but ultimately, a loss for American taxpayers and consumers. The catfish program is so ridiculous it has attracted a coalition of unlikely allies in opposition to it, including Senators Tom Coburn, John Kerry, John McCain, Bill Nelson and Jeanne Shaheen. As the USDA inches closer to catfish inspection, it is time for more members of Congress to speak up. As Senators McCain and Coburn made clear when they introduced legislation to prevent the expansion of catfish inspections, this regulation is “nothing more than a protectionist tactic funded at taxpayers’ expense.” ? ?

There is no room for politics in food safety. If the public was better protected by moving catfish to USDA. I would be the first person to speak up. Science makes clear that Americans are safe from catfish. Whether they are safe from politicians looking to use tax dollars for pet projects remains in question.
 

Fake health inspector phones Des Moines restaurant, talks to real inspector

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There’s been a spate of health inspector scams preying on restaurants throughout the U.S. in the past five years. From handwashing signs for cash to extorting fake inspection fees, the fake inspector business has been booming.

WHO-TV reports a man calling a Des Moines restaurant pretending to be a state health inspector was interrupted when a real inspector got on the phone.

Emily Wegner says she was at the restaurant Wednesday when she heard a server yell into the kitchen that the state health department was on the phone. Wegner, whose job it is to inspect restaurants, says she got on the phone and told the caller that he was not an inspector and that she was.

The fake inspector wanted to schedule an appointment but asked for a deposit for the visit.

Wegner says the state does not charge for inspections.

Wegner says she got the caller’s information and reported the scam to police.
 

Half China’s dairies shut in safety audit

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Nearly half of Chinese dairies inspected in a government safety audit have been ordered to stop production, a spokesman said today.

The move follows the 2008 melamine-in-baby milk health scandal, in which Chinese authorities said at least six babies died and another 300,000 were sickened.

Only 643 companies from a total of 1176 had their licences renewed, while 426 failed the quality criteria set by the audit and 107 others had already stopped production to bring themselves into compliance, said administration spokesman Li Yuanping in comments reported on its website.

Of the 145 companies producing milk powder for babies, 114 had their licence renewed, he said.

The authorities will strengthen supervision of dairy companies, both those who passed the audit and the those who did not, and "production without authorisation will be severely punished", said Li.

The measures taken will lead to more than 20 percent of businesses being closed, the Dairy Producers Association of China predicted in an article in China Daily.

University students plan cafeteria boycott after health violations

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Big tip of the hat to the students at New York’s Pace University and a Colbert wag of the finger to Lackmann Culinary Services, which runs the school cafeteria, and was closed after health inspectors discovered it was a dump.

DNAinfo.com reports the city shut down Pace’s main dining hall, along with the school’s coffee kiosk and late-night eatery, last Thursday after observing workers touching food with their bare hands and storing perishable items at unsafe temperatures.

The 79 violation points also included citations for dirty clothing, no soap in the bathroom and un-sanitized cloths.

And just like in the UAE, a company spokesthingy had to say, health and safety are the company’s top priorities.

Which is why Lackmann only now plans to hire a full-time sanitarian and has already made changes to better monitor food temperatures. Students said they noticed the staff wearing gloves for the first time.

They got caught.

The students are having none of it and have Facebook-planned a boycott of the cafeteria.

Orlando Olave, 22, a Pace senior who said he knew several people who believe they have gotten food poisoning from the cafeteria, adding,

"I felt like it was going to happen eventually. [The workers’] aprons are usually dirty, and they wipe their hands on them."

Ashley Cetinkaya, 19, a Pace freshman who plans to buy her lunch elsewhere from now on, said,

"It’s unacceptable considering the prices they charge us. I’m not going to be eating there again."

A Pace spokesthingy said the university is meeting with students this week "to discuss their grievances and the university’s plans for addressing them."

Pace students, take some food safety knowledge with you to the meeting and you’ll know far more than the bureaucrats or the catering firm.
 

Canadian government about to be toppled bolsters food inspection

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One of the reasons I largely ignore political chatter is the meaningless of it all.

The Conservative minority government unveiled its budget this afternoon and pledged to boost spending on Canada’s food inspection system by $100 million over the next five years.

The additional money for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is needed to fix problems flagged in 2009 in the wake of a deadly listeriosis outbreak, the government said.

Independent investigator Sheila Weatherill identified a series of food-safety gaps in Canada — including a void in leadership within the federal government — that helped contribute to a listeriosis outbreak in 2008 that left 22 Canadians dead.

They had all consumed tainted deli meats produced at a federally inspected plant in Toronto, operated by Maple Leaf Foods.

But the three opposition parties in the British-style Parliamentary system are all saying, the budget sucks, so let’s have yet another election.
 

Roy Costa does Tampa home kitchen inspections – and here’ s the video

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The suave and sassy Roy Costa showed up on Tampa television last night, walking viewers through a couple of home kitchen food safety inspections, including the kitchen of ABC Action News Dirty Dining reporter, Wendy Ryan.

(I can’t actually confirm the broadcast date, but the clip showed up on the web last night.)

The story says that Gretchen Barnes is a busy new mom with twin 7-month-old boys, Beckett and Eli, and has much less time to do things like clean the kitchen.

Gretchen was a trooper to allow former health inspector Roy Costa to come to her house and do a mock inspection on her kitchen.

Right away, Roy found a critical violation: Eggs over five months old in her refrigerator. The package had a printed expiration date of September 17, 2010.

Roy said one of the most contaminated areas of the kitchen is the sink drain, because of the disposal and waste spewing up from the bottom.

Roy says it’s a good idea to disinfect the sink drain once a week. So how do you do that?

"Make about a 200-part-per-million dilution of this bleach. Because we know if you have the proper water to bleach, the activity of the chlorine that’s in there is going to be a lot more effective," Roy explained.

So in a bucket of room temperature water, less than a capful of clorox would be enough to create the right level of disinfectant.

And Roy says sanitizing the baby’s toys with that same diluted solution is a good idea.

Sophie the giraffe, a previous favorite of our 2-year-old Sorenne, was somewhat dirty in the twins’ house, so Roy recommended a soap and water wash before sterilizing the twins’ Sophie in the solution for at least 5 minutes. 

Voluntarily public: Consumers concerned Wales messing up food safety grades

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Consumer Focus Wales says more than 60 schools, nursing homes and hospitals in Wales have sub-standard food hygiene and is calling for full inspection reports to be made available to the public in order to protect vulnerable groups.

BBC News reports the watchdog has published a map showing public institutions with ratings below the satisfactory score.

Maria Battle, senior director of Consumer Focus Wales, called for the assembly government to use its new direct powers to ensure food hygiene ratings were displayed at business premises.

"It is not acceptable that there are publicly-funded institutions, such as hospitals and schools, serving food to vulnerable people despite failing to meet statutory requirements for food hygiene. The greatest tool for improving food hygiene is openness to public scrutiny by making businesses display their food hygiene ratings on the premises. What greater incentive for food producers than knowing their rating will be public and their failings will no longer be hidden?"

A spokesperson for the Welsh Local Government Agency said, "The idea behind the food hygiene rating system is to promote consumer choice and drive up standards in food businesses. A business with a poor rating is generally one that is found on inspection to need to improve standards. However, the reason for a low score could be that the business does not currently have a written procedure for food hygiene. Whilst the business premises could be spotless, without this written supporting document they could not be scored above a one-star rating. It is important to note that those premises with low ratings are most likely to be in the process of improving."

Food hygiene ratings can vary from zero (urgent improvement necessary) to five (very good).

Sharon Mills, the mother of Mason Jones, the schoolboy from Deri near Bargoed who died in the 2005 E. coli outbreak after eating infected meat, said it was "diabolical" that hygiene was not up to scratch at premises serving vulnerable people.