Tag Archives: Pennington

‘I wouldn’t eat there’ Scottish stadium slated by council after failing food hygiene tests

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Hampden Park, Scotland’s National Stadium, a 52,000ish seat venue in Glasgow, has been slammed by food hygiene inspectors over the state of its kitchens.

The Daily Record reports a series of food safety breaches were discovered at Hampden’s hospitality suites, including dirty, crumbling work surfaces, out-of-date food and staff who didn’t know they had to wash their hands.

A head chef with no food hygiene training was employed, bins were uncovered and shoes and trainers were left lying in food preparation areas.

The damning report of the failed inspection also revealed kitchen staff risked poisoning customers by storing raw and ready-to-eat meals in the same vacuum packaging machine.

Hampden’s facilities are used for corporate clients during Scotland games and concerts, with hospitality packages costing up to £2850. This summer, the stadium will host London Olympics football matches.

The kitchens are run by Prestige Scotland, part of the Sodexo catering group.

The inspection by officers from Glasgow City Council was carried out late last year but has only now been made public.

Food safety expert Professor Hugh Pennington said: “This report makes very grim reading and I wouldn’t be going to eat there. There is a whole list of very serious breaches. Employing qualified staff and handwashing are just basic things which they should be getting right. The place was obviously not being run properly and there would have been a real risk of customers getting food poisoning. Storing ready-to-eat and raw foods in the same vacuum packaging machine is known to be a dangerous practice.”

Improvements made, but Wales still struggling with food safety

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 The Welsh government has been criticized by a consumer group for failing to publish a key food safety review, more than a year after it was due.

Madeleine Brindly reports that Consumer Focus Wales called on First Minister Carwyn Jones to make public the findings of a report he commissioned in 2010 into how best to enforce food hygiene regulations in Wales. The Food Standards Agency report should have been published in February 2011.

Overall the consumer body said good progress has been made implementing the 24 recommendations made by official inquiry that followed the 2005 deadly E.coli O157 outbreak that claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones in the South Wales Valleys.

Consumer Focus Wales has praised a proposed new law to force restaurants and takeaways to display their food hygiene rating scores.

Liz Withers, head of policy at Consumer Focus Wales, said, “There have been great strides in food safety, with the Welsh Government promising to make it law for the mandatory display of food hygiene ratings on food business premises.

“But we are disappointed a year on from our last report, the Food Standards Agency food law enforcement review, commissioned by the Welsh Government, has yet to be published. It is 12 months overdue – this simply isn’t good enough for consumers in Wales.”

Professor Hugh Pennington led the inquiry into the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in the South Wales valleys, which was caused by rogue butcher William John Tudor and killed five-year-old Deri schoolboy Mason Jones.

The Consumer Focus Wales report, the third of its kind, said many of the Pennington recommendations have not been implemented.

Meat industry opposes UK cross-contamination guidelines

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Six years after 5-year-old Mason Jones died a painful and unnecessary death and two years after recommendations from a formal inquiry, the U.K. Food Standards Agency has decided to publish additional guidance on cross-contamination.

The UK. Meat industry immediately complained.

In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 were killed in Scotland by E. coli O157:H7 found in deli meats produced by family butchers John Barr & Son. The Butcher of Scotland, who had been in business for 28 years and was previously awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year, was using the same knives to handle raw and cooked meat.

In a 1997 inquiry, Prof. Hugh Pennington recommended, among other things, the physical separation, within premises and butcher shops, of raw and
cooked meat products using separate counters, equipment and staff.

Five-year-old Mason Jones died on Oct. 4, 2005, from E. coli O157 as part of an outbreak which sickened 157 — primarily schoolchildren — in south Wales.

In a 2009 inquiry, Prof. Pennington concluded that serious failings at every step in the food chain allowed butcher William Tudor to start the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak, and that while the responsibility for the outbreak, “falls squarely on the shoulders of Tudor,” finding that he:

• encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhea to continue working;?
• knew of cross-contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it;?
• used the same packing in which raw meat had been delivered to subsequently store cooked product;? and,
• operated a processing facility that contained a filthy meat slicer, cluttered and dirty chopping areas, and meat more than two years out of date piled in a freezer.

Prof Pennington said he was disappointed that the recommendations he made more than 10 years ago, following the E. coli O157 outbreak in Wishaw, Scotland, which killed 21 people had failed to prevent the South Wales Valleys outbreak.

In Feb. 2011, the U.K. Food Standards Authority issued guidance to clarify the steps that food businesses need to take to control the risk of contamination from E. coli O157.

On June 1, 2011, FSA published a Q&A document in response to feedback on its guidance on the control of cross-contamination with E. coli O157.

A few days later, Philip Edge, the newly appointed president of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders (NFMFT), warned that the cross-contamination guidelines pose a serious risk to the viability of small butchers and meat businesses, adding,

“If the FSA wish to apply these guidelines, they must ensure it is for every food business. There is no room for the rule to apply to one and not to the other.??“

Complete separation in regard to handlers, to clothing and to machinery applies to all food businesses, whether they are a market stall, a fast-food outlet, a restaurant, hotel, greengrocer, baker, butcher, bagel-maker, supermarket, everyone. And the guidelines will be – and must be – applied across the board. Local authorities will not – and must not – get away with targeting just butchers.“

FSA’s operations director Andrew Rhodes defended the plans, saying that consistency of application was the key although he recognized that every business was different and that there had to be some flexibility to do things ‘the right way.’

Rhodes met with strong opposition from Federation members, who maintained that their views have not been listened to. They have vowed to continue the fight against both the guidelines and the FSA’s controversial plans for full-cost recovery. They said that the FSA did not understand the impact it was having on small businesses.

Outgoing president John Taylor criticised the “the over-staffing and policing of the industry”. He warned that the cross-contamination guidelines were impractical, not affordable and would result in severely limiting customer choice.

UK guidance to prevent E. coli contamination: too little, too late***

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In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 were killed in Scotland by E. coli O157:H7 found in deli meats produced by family butchers John Barr & Son. The Butcher of Scotland, who had been in business for 28 years and was previously awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year, was using the same knives to handle raw and cooked meat.

In a 1997 inquiry, Prof. Hugh Pennington recommended, among other things, the physical separation, within premises and butcher shops, of raw and cooked meat products using separate counters, equipment and staff.

Five-year-old Mason Jones (right) died a painful and unnecessary death on Oct. 4, 2005, from E. coli O157 as part of an outbreak which sickened 157 — primarily schoolchildren — in south Wales.?

In a 2009 inquiry, Prof. Pennington concluded that serious failings at every step in the food chain allowed butcher William Tudor to start the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak, and that while the responsibility for the outbreak, “falls squarely on the shoulders of Tudor,” there was no shortage of errors, including:??

• local health types did not sufficiently assess or monitor John Tudor & Son’s food safety management or HACCP plan;??
• the abattoir was allowed to continue slaughtering despite longstanding and repetitive failures, in breach of legislative requirements and without significant improvements; and,?
• the procurement process was “seriously flawed in relation to food safety.”??

Pennington also heard that butcher Tudor:

• encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhea to continue working;
• knew of cross-contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it;
• used the same packing in which raw meat had been delivered to subsequently store cooked product;
• operated a processing facility that contained a filthy meat slicer, cluttered and dirty chopping areas, and meat more than two years out of date piled in a freezer;
• a cleaning schedule at the factory that one expert called "a joke;"
• falsified crucial health and safety documents and lied about receiving hygiene awards; and,
• supplied schools with meat that was green, smelly and undercooked.

Prof Pennington said he was disappointed that the recommendations he made more than 10 years ago, following the E. coli O157 outbreak in Wishaw, Scotland, which killed 21 people had failed to prevent the South Wales Valleys outbreak.

Today, the U.K. Food Standards Authority issued guidance to clarify the steps that food businesses need to take to control the risk of contamination from the food bug E. coli O157.

Serious outbreaks of E. coli in Scotland in 1996 and Wales in 2005 resulted in serious illness in some individuals and, in a few cases, death. These outbreaks were attributed to cross-contamination arising from the poor handling of food.

Seriously, I don’t know who writes this stuff; 23 died in the Scotland outbreak.

Yes, the butchers in both cases made terrible food handling decisions that led to illness and death. But people are going to do dumb, or criminal things with food, which means the overall microbial load must be minimized as food moves from farm-to-fork.

FSA has nothing to say on this.

It is also expected that the guidance will be used by local authority food safety officers when inspecting businesses in their area.

Those inspectors didn’t catch anything at either John Tudor & Sons, or John Barr, the butchers of Wales and Scotland, respectively.

In 1999 Prof Pennington said,

“The prospect of another Mr Barr type situation is still quite real because everybody I talk to in meat inspection and environmental health tells me there are people who are still not doing the right thing.”

So almost 15 years after the Scotland E. coli outbreak, FSA says some of the key measures highlighted in the guidance to control E. coli are:

* identification of separate work areas, surfaces and equipment for raw and ready-to-eat food;
* use of separate complex equipment, such as vacuum-packing machines, slicers, and mincers for raw and ready-to-eat food; and,
* handwashing should be carried out using a recognised technique and anti-bacterial gels must not be used instead of thorough handwashing.

Verifying cooking procedures with tip-sensitive digital thermometers rather than relying on the terrible advice of “until the juices run clear” or “piping hot” would help. But don’t expect FSA to say anything. Maybe in 15 years.
 

What about Wales? If U.K. Food Standards Agency goes, Wales should set up its own

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Professor Hugh Pennington, who wrote a report following the 2005 E. coli outbreak in South Wales which claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones, said the plan to abolish the U.K. Food Standards Agency had “absolutely no merit” and “could lead to more tragedies.”

Wales Online reports the U.K. Department for Health yesterday said no final decision had been taken about the fate of the FSA, but admitted it was “under review” along with other bodies.

Professor Pennington urged the Welsh Assembly to “think very, very hard” about creating their own FSA in Wales should the current one be abolished and said there was no need to follow England’s example.

There is confusion today over what will happen in Wales if the FSA is abolished.
It has been reported that in England, the FSA’s responsibilities would be taken on jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – whose remit does not cover Wales.

It also comes as the Welsh Assembly is in the midst of taking forward the actions of the Pennington Report.

The issue could prove embarrassing for the Welsh Conservatives, who last week called for more powers for the FSA, while their London counterparts have confirmed they are considering its future.

Professor Pennington said,

“What is being proposed seems to be going back to what we had before and that would be a significant step backwards. I see no merit in it whatsoever. E.coli hasn’t gone, and it’s likely to cause problems again in the future if you don’t get the system of regulation and inspection right. We know there are a minority of food companies out there who flout the rules and present a danger to the public. They need to be found and stamped on.”

The mother of five-year-old Mason Jones, who died after contracting E. coli in the 2005 outbreak in South Wales, said abolishing the FSA would be a “major, major blow to Wales. If the FSA is abolished, who is going to oversee Wales’ local authorities? It is quite shocking. It would be a major, major setback for all that we have tried to achieve with the Pennington report. It would be absolutely awful.”

Wales E. coli professor says make public health a priority

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Wales has some money issues.

But bacteriologist Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired a public inquiry into the South Wales Valleys E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005, which claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones, will tell the National Assembly’s health committee this week that public health needs to be spared from expected budget cuts.

He is asking for councils to be given enough money to spare experienced environmental health officers.

Pennington said earlier in the week,

“My immediate concern is that in the implementation of financial reductions by the shedding of staff, policy will be driven by human resource departments rather than the need to retain experience and institutional memory.”

That’s a common theme I’ve heard over the years in trying to figure out why all these foodborne illness outbreaks keep happening, especially in processed foods which should have the poop processed out of them: companies just lack people who know what they’re doing when it comes to food safety.

But I have to take issue with the good professor when he says the 2000 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario (that’s in Canada) which sickened 2,300 and killed seven was caused because of lax water supply safety checks due to budget cuts.

In his health committee paper Prof Pennington said the event in Canada “provides evidence that rather than maintaining the systems that protected the population from E. coli O157, the Canadian approach to managing budget cuts contributed to the regulatory failures that led to this massive outbreak.”

Budgetary issues may have been a contributing factor, but more money doesn’t mean people will do what they’re supposed to do

The Walkerton Commission of Inquiry, led by Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor, concluded:

• Seven people died, and more than 2,300 became ill. Some people, particularly children, may endure lasting effects.

• The contaminants, largely E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni, entered the Walkerton system through Well 5 on or shortly after May 12, 2000.

• The primary, if not the only, source of the contamination was manure that had been spread on a farm near Well 5. The owner of this farm followed proper practices and should not be faulted.

• The outbreak would have been prevented by the use of continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors at Well 5.

• The failure to use continuous monitors at Well 5 resulted from short-comings in the approvals and inspections programs of the Ministry of the Environment (MOE). The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission (PUC) operators lacked the training and expertise necessary to identify either the vulnerability of Well 5 to surface contamination or the resulting need for continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors.

• The scope of the outbreak would very likely have been substantially reduced if the Walkerton PUC operators had measured chlorine residuals at Well 5 daily, as they should have, during the critical period when contamination was entering the system.

• For years, the PUC operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken. The operators knew that these practices were unacceptable and contrary to MOE guidelines and directives.

• The MOE’s inspections program should have detected the Walkerton PUC’s improper treatment and monitoring practices and ensured that those practices were corrected.

• On Friday, May 19, 2000, and on the days following, the PUC’s general manager concealed from the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit and others the adverse test results from water samples taken on May 15 and the fact that Well 7 had operated without a chlorinator during that week and earlier that month. Had he disclosed either of these facts, the health unit would have issued a boil water advisory on May 19, and 300 to 400 illnesses would have been avoided.

• In responding to the outbreak, the health unit acted diligently and should not be faulted for failing to issue the boil water advisory before Sunday, May 21. However, some residents of Walkerton did not become aware of the boil water advisory on May 21. The advisory should have been more broadly disseminated.

• The provincial government’s budget reductions led to the discontinuation of government laboratory testing services for municipalities in 1996. In implementing this decision, the government should have enacted a regulation mandating that testing laboratories immediately and directly notify both the MOE and the Medical Officer of Health of adverse results. Had the government done this, the boil water advisory would have been issued by May 19 at the latest, thereby preventing hundreds of illnesses.

Yesterday, Pennington told the Assembly’s health committee the failure of some firms to comply with basic hygiene legislation is “essentially a disgrace.”

“For any business not to be doing what they are legally obliged to, which is having a HACCP plan or something like it, I think it’s essentially a disgrace. I am not yet convinced that we have got to the point where we can say that all small businesses have got a HACCP running which an environmental health officer should be satisfied with.”

Consumer Focus Wales’ Senior Director Maria Battle took a different approach, telling the committee food businesses should be legally required to display their hygiene rating on the premises.

The Food Standards Agency is currently developing the Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme, also known as ‘Scores on the Doors,’ but the scheme only allows for voluntary display. Consumers will have to visit a website to find out about poorly performing businesses.

It’s not Scores on Doors if the results are not publicly displayed. Regulatory, financial, shock and shame, all of these approaches should be explored to enhance the food safety culture of any food business.
 

Environmental health driven by HR, good people leaving

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Scotland has the highest rate of E coli O157 infection in the world and experts are struggling to maintain the fight against the infection.

Prof Hugh Pennington, who has chaired two public inquiries into major outbreaks of E. coli O157, said he was concerned about the number of experienced personnel being lost due to budget cuts, adding,

"Worryingly environmental health now seems to be being driven by HR departments."

Rod House, president of the Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland, said many senior officers were taking early retirement as councils seek to reduce their wage bills, yet fewer trainees are being appointed.
 

Groundhog Day: Will there be an E. coli Pennington 3 without additional money?

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Professor Hugh Pennington is apparently unstuck in time, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 were killed in Scotland by E. coli O157:H7 found in deli meats produced by family butchers John Barr & Son. The Butcher of Scotland, who had been in business for 28 years and who was previously awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year, was using the same knives to handle raw and cooked meat. That’s a food safety no-no.

In a 1997 inquiry, Prof. Pennington recommended, among other things, the physical separation, within premises and butcher shops, of raw and cooked meat products using separate counters, equipment and staff.

In 2008, Prof. Pennington heard in a new inquiry how John Tudor and Son, the Butcher of Wales, used the same machine to vacuum package both raw and cooked meats, leading to an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak beginning in Sept. 2005, which sickened some150 children in 44 schools in southern Wales and killed five-year-old Mason Jones.

This morning, a consumer watchdog said food hygiene services in Wales need an extra £2.5m a year to help prevent a repeat of a fatal 2005 E. coli outbreak.

I’m not sure extra money is going to change anything. If someone wants to clearly skirt with food safety, as butcher William Tudor did, bad things will happen. And the local councils were already turning a blind eye to Tudor’s most egregious actions.

The Butcher of Wales was shown to have:

• encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhea to continue preparing meat for school dinners;
• known of cross-contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it;
• used the same packing in which raw meat had been delivered to subsequently store cooked product;
• operated a processing facility that contained a filthy meat slicer, cluttered and dirty chopping areas, and meat more than two years out of date piled in a freezer;
• a cleaning schedule at the factory that one expert called "a joke;"
• falsified crucial health and safety documents and lied about receiving hygiene awards; and,
• supplied schools with meat that was green, smelly and undercooked.

Professor Chris Griffith, head of the food research and consultancy unit at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, told the inquiry the culture at the premises was “dominated by saving money.”

So who allowed Tudor to operate under such conditions?

Government inspectors.

Prof. Pennington heard that Tudor and Son was visited several times in the months leading up to the Sept. 2005 outbreak, that inspectors knew there was only one vac-pac machine being used for both cooked and raw meats but, despite Pennington’s 1997 recommendation, inspectors decided the business did not pose "an imminent risk" to human health.

"There was a failure in the series of inspections to identify poor hygiene and working practices and a failure to take action."

The inspectors also took on "face value" explanations offered by Tudor and his staff for various food safety failures.

Among the recommendations in the report issued this morning is that,

The Food Standards Agency should issue clear guidance to inspectors that the use of the same equipment to process raw and ready-to-eat foods is totally unacceptable.

Does anyone need extra money to clearly state food safety basics?

‘Change culture to avoid E. coli’

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Amy’s father and stepmom came for a visit and yesterday we went to a local eatery for a late lunch.

When Amy’s dad ordered a burger, the server asked how he would like the burger cooked.

He said medium-well.

The server said he could get the burger as rare as he wanted.

Amy said really, and started asking, just what was a medium-rare burger.

The server said it all had to do with color, and after some back and forth with the cooks, said the beef they get has nothing bad in it anyway.

Color is a lousy indicator.

During the same meal, a reporter called to ask, why do companies – big companies, huge chains and brand names — knowingly follow or ignore bad safety practices? (that story should appear Sunday).

It comes down to culture – the food safety culture of a restaurant, a supermarket, a butcher shop, a government agency.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. The culture of today’s food system (including its farms, food processing facilities, domestic and international distribution channels, retail outlets, restaurants, and domestic kitchens) is saturated with information but short on behavioral-change insights. Creating a culture of food safety requires application of the best science with the best management and communication systems, including compelling, rapid, relevant, reliable and repeated, multi-linguistic and culturally-sensitive messages.

Sixteen years after E. coli O157:H7 killed four and sickened hundreds who ate hamburgers at the Jack-in-the-Box chain, the challenge remains: how to get people to take food safety seriously? ??????Lots of companies do take food safety seriously and the bulk of American meals are microbiologically safe. But recent food safety failures have been so extravagant, so insidious and so continual that consumers must feel betrayed.??????

Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart writes in his book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System, that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture.

The other guru of food safety culture, Chris Griffith of the University of Wales, features prominently in the report by Professor Hugh Pennington into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in Wales that killed 5-year-old Mason Jones and sickened another 160 school kids.

Yesterday, the board of the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA), in response to Pennington’s report, approved a five-year plan that will push food businesses to adopt a food safety culture and comply with hygiene laws, and urge stricter punishments for those that do not. The FSA will also ensure health inspectors are better trained.

A report put before FSA board members in London stated “culture change in all of the relevant parts of the food supply chain” is necessary.

Mason Jones’ mum Sharon Mills said she is pleased with the action being taken by the FSA.

“This sounds promising and shows they are moving in the right direction. … Things are slowly changing and hopefully we will all see the benefits sooner rather than later.”

Maybe. I’m still not convinced FSA understands what culture is all about. And how will these changes be evaluated. Is there any evidence that social marketing is effective in creating food safety behavior change? Those issues get to the essence of food safety culture, yet are glossed over with a training session – more of the same.

And why wait for government. The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent — whether it’s live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website — to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.

Can food safety culture be taught? UK Food Standards Agency responds to E. coli O157 report

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Two days ago, the parents of 5-year-old E. coli victim Mason Jones called the Welsh government response to an inquiry into the 2005 outbreak, “a bit disappointing.”

Today, the U.K. Food Standards Agency published its own response and, it’s a bit disappointing.

After a cursory reading, the FSA folks seem to acknowledge some of the major points raised by Prof. Pennington, but in the end promised more of the same (but gosh-darnnit, a bit tougher on enforcement).

Here are a few highlights:

This understanding of ‘food safety issues’ culture and ‘what works’ are core to the Food Hygiene Delivery Programme. This will be a particular challenge as local authorities’ regulatory services are facing declining resources, and increasing demands for their services. We must push more effectively in all appropriate national forums for food safety to be given more prominence by local political bodies and their officials. Our own project-based approach to delivering responses to this Inquiry, coupled with the restructuring of the Agency’s Food Safety Group, is designed to concentrate on a coordinated set of actions to achieve the desired outcomes in a holistic rather than piecemeal way.

Culture and holistic are nice words but the FSA says:

In May 2009 the FSA announced a new training course on social marketing and behavioural change for food enforcement officers. It aims to develop skills to acquire an insight into the behaviours of food business operators and consumers in order to successfully disseminate food safety messages.

What does disseminate mean in this context? What if the messages suck? How will this be evaluated. Is there any evidence that social marketing is effective in creating food safety behavior change? Those issues get to the essence of food safety culture, yet are glossed over with a training session – more of the same.