Tag Archives: restaurant inspection

CNN’s version of 7 things to know about the U.S. food system

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There’s a lot you don’t know about what you’re eating.

food.industy.usHere are some of the most important things we learned while reporting CNNMoney’s Raw Ingredients series.

  1. The food industry is vast

The U.S. spends a lot of money on food. We’re talking $1.5 trillion a year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

  1. Corn is the foundation

The U.S. produced almost 800 billion pounds of corn in 2014.

It’s the basis of much of our food: It goes into animal feed, high-fructose corn syrup, cereal, starch and some alcohol. So if you’re eating meat and cereal or drinking soda, there’s a good chance it all started with corn.

  1. The industry has a fat wallet and lots of influence

When it comes to new regulations, food companies and their lobbying groups will throw their weight around.

Beginning in 2001, the USDA’s Microbiological Data Program shouldered about 80% of all public testing for pathogens in produce and regularly called for recalls. The produce industry lobbied against it, claiming that the agency within the USDA that ran it didn’t have the authority to test produce.

When the FDA moved to prohibit the use of poultry litter (that is, chicken poop) in cattle feed to prevent Mad Cow Disease in 2004, the industry argued that science didn’t justify the ban. Four years later, the FDA decided the regulation wasn’t necessary, saying it addressed the issue in other ways.

  1. Critics say there should be more food testing

Mansour Samadpour runs IEH Laboratories, one of the largest private food testing facilities in the nation. Companies hire him to test their food and make sure it’s safe for the consumer.

He believes much of the current testing is too infrequent and small in scale. “We call that faith-based food safety,” he says.

Why do companies resist more testing? If more was done at the retail level, it would “always result in recalls,” Samadpour says, because they find pathogens in the food so often.

But he also insists that some companies “are doing everything that they can” with regard to food safety.

  1. The environment is not the main priority

The aim of the food industry is having food at our fingertips — available anytime, anywhere. But we use a lot of resources to make that happen.

  1. Neither is your health

Americans are spending less money on food than ever before, but they are spending more on health care (as a percentage of overall spending).

  1. Companies adapt to consumer demands

Food companies really want to give consumers what they want. Fewer artificial ingredients, meatier fish, prewashed salads … producers are constantly evolving their products in response to customer feedback.

‘Moral aversion to killing cockroaches’ not good enough for Australian restaurant

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The Canberra Times reports that four restaurants were shut down in the Australian Capital Territory in 2015 for posing an immediate public health risk.

kingsland-vegetarianIt’s a dramatically lower number than 2014, when more than a dozen restaurants were shut down by health authorities after being hit with prohibition orders.

With the Health Protection Service performing a similar number of inspections each year, the directorate attributes the discrepancy to “better working relationships between restaurant owners and food regulators.”

ACT Health’s “name and shame” list shows that since 2011, 14 restaurants, cafes and fast food outlets in the ACT have been hit with fines totalling more than $86,000 for breaches of food safety standards.

In 2015, seven restaurants were added to the list when they were successfully prosecuted and fined for breaching the food standards code, ACT Health said.

That number does not correspond with the number of restaurants shut down, because it can be anywhere between one and three years before breaches discovered at inspection are finalised in court.

Among the eateries taken to court and fined for food safety breaches in 2015 were a vegetarian restaurant, sushi shop and a Thai restaurant, all for allowing cockroaches into food preparation areas.

Kingsland Vegetarian Restaurant was fined $16,000 in February for eight food safety breaches, two years after inspectors discovered the live and dead cockroaches in the kitchen of the northside eatery.

The owner said he had a moral aversion to killing cockroaches but later brought in a pest control team on a regular basis and had appointed a food safety supervisor.

A Woden sushi shop owner was also fined for safety breaches that put customers at risk, including cockroaches in the food preparation area and keeping the display cabinet too warm.

The proprietor of Lao Thai Kitchen in Holt before it closed allowed cockroaches to breed and die inside food tubs, on floors, walls and benches had to pay thousands of dollars in fines.

The restaurant

Out of 2929 registered food businesses, ACT Health inspected 2368 and issued 388 improvement notices, for June 2014-15.

That’s compared with 2851 registered food businesses between 2014-15 with 2171 inspections performed and 357 improvement notices issued.

Surveys still suck: Public wants more information about conditions at LA County restaurants

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Surveys are built-in news generators but can often mean little.

Of course people want more information, want more food labels, and always wash their hands properly when they go #2.

survey.saysThe San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports the public wants to know more about the conditions in Los Angeles County restaurants.

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 3, 419 people responded to the five-question survey asking whether more information should be provided on health grade placards posted in restaurant and market windows, according to a Dec. 23 report submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The survey, which was made available online and in-person at district office, is part of an effort to improve the county’s restaurant grading system.

Among the survey findings:

  • More than 85 percent of respondents consider restaurant grades (A, B, C) before eating out
  • 93 percent said they look for the current letter grade when they arrive at a restaurant, 34 percent look at Yelp reviews and approximately 14 percent look at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health website
  • More than 70 percent of respondents said it would be helpful for the inspection score (ie. 92, 85, 78) to be posted along with the A, B or C grade, as well as the health code violations observed during the latest inspection
  • Roughly 75 percent said they would like to see the date of the inspection
  • Around half of respondents said they would access information about restaurant inspection reports with their smartphones if a QR code was made available on the grade card.

The results of the survey were included in the fourth monthly progress report on a series of recommendations proposed by the health department in August.

Prompted by a Los Angeles News Group review of almost two years of inspection data, the recommendations outline a series of current problems and potential fixes to the 17-year-old grading system, which allows many restaurants and markets to operate with major health threats and gives those facilities high health grades, according to the data.

New Jersey restaurant at center of hepatitis A outbreak closes

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The Hamilton restaurant where four people contracted Hepatitis A at the end of 2014 has permanently closed its doors.

hep.aRosa’s Restaurant, the South Broad Street mainstay, quietly announced that it was closing its doors with small signs hanging on the front and rear doors thanking its customers.

Rosa Spera-Gilmore, the restaurant’s owner and namesake, said in an interview Wednesday Rosa’s last hurrah was a New Year’s Eve party that attracted 300.

“Coming to America from Italy at the age of 11, I never imagined I’d one day own and run my own business,” Spera-Gilmore said. “I was glad that being a business owner let me put others to work and to give back to the community by supporting a lot of civic events and groups. These are the things I’ll think about when I think about the old restaurant.”

A confirmed case of Hepatitis A has been traced to a food worker employed at Rosa’s Restaurant and Catering in Hamilton, officials said late Monday

Spera-Gilmore said the catering portion of the business will continue, despite the demise of the restaurant, but she declined to cite the hepatitis A outbreak as a contributing factor in the closure.

Four people linked to the restaurant were diagnosed with hepatitis A beginning in Dec. 2014.

In response, the township sponsored a vaccination clinic for township residents and urged others to consult their physicians for a vaccine.

The disease originated with an employee of the restaurant, with the remaining cases reported in customers, including a hairstylist and fitness instructor who had regular interaction with the general public.

“There’s some question regarding their hand washing procedures,” Jeff Plunkett, township health officer, said at the time. “The cases certainly have a possibility of being linked, but it’s hard to say whether the gentleman infected himself or contracted it somewhere else and brought it to the facility.”

The restaurant had a history of health violations before and after the outbreak. 

Inspectors found multiple violations related to hand washing, food storage and preparation between October 2014 and January 2015.

On Dec. 1, 2014, inspectors visited the site after the original employee was diagnosed with hepatitis A, ordering food destroyed, surfaces sanitized and denaturing of certain products, such as soups that couldn’t be placed in the trash, by pouring bleach on them.

Inspectors intervened after employees briefly began preparing meals for new customers using food they were ordered to throw away, improperly washed their hands and handled food with bare hands.

The Township Committee considered local legislation that would have imposed stiffer fines on restaurants with health code violations, but in March opted to postpone a vote on an ordinance that would have tripled inspection fees on restaurants that fail two or more health inspections.

“I’m grateful for the years of patronage and so many customers who became family,” Spera-Gilmore said. “I look forward in the year ahead to starting a new business that will focus exclusively on catering.”

Cook’s fingertip ends up in Applebee’s salad

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A pregnant California woman has filed a claim saying she found a bloody fingertip in a salad at an Applebee’s restaurant in Paso Robles.

Pregnant-woman-sues-over-bloody-fingertip-in-Applebees-saladCathleen Martin of Atascadero tells The Tribune in San Luis Obispo that she was with her husband and child at the restaurant in December when she found the fingertip in  her Chinese chicken salad.

Attorney Eric Traut of Santa Ana says the manager confirmed the fingertip belonged to a cook.

A letter from Applebee’s says the restaurant can’t force the cook to undergo health tests, but a spokesman says the cook has volunteered to undergo screening.

The claim is the precursor to a lawsuit. It seeks unspecified damages, medical expenses and lost income.

Everyone’s got a camera — raccoons in New York Chinese restaurant edition

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Rise of the raccoons.

raccoon.liam.neesonLast week it was a raccoon at a Tim Hortons in Toronto.

Now it’s a Chinese restaurant in the Bronx.

According to DNA Info, Bronxite Tamika Jones recently took a video of a pair of the creatures clinging tenaciously to a metal gate inside of a Chinese restaurant in The Bronx while her godfather valiantly tries (and eventually succeeds at) chasing the creatures away with a broom.

An “A” grade from the Health Department is posted right next to the gate that the raccoons tried to claim as their own territory.

The viral video, credited to Jukin Media, has already been viewed more than 2 million times and shared more than 57,000 times on Facebook.

 

 

Lookism: Restaurants hide ugly diners up the back

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We don’t go out to eat much anymore. It’s too expensive, too much of a hassle, and maybe we’re too ugly.

sorenne.amy.nov.15Restaurants deliberately allocate their best tables to their most attractive diners, an investigation has found.

Models posing as customers for a TV documentary were given “golden tables” in three top restaurants.

But those considered less attractive were seated at the back near kitchens or toilets.

And two restaurateurs admitted it was common practice. TV chef Simon Rimmer owns Greens in Manchester and Earle in Cheshire (both in the UK).

He said: “Every restaurant has a golden table where they sit the best looking customers. A restaurant’s clientele give off a certain message about the place.

“Good looking customers attract more people and make you more cash so you sit them where they can be seen.”

Faith-based food safety has run its course. I’d be more interested in the bugs being served rather than where I was seated.

From the duh files, Birmingham UK edition: Restaurant inspection grade should be mandatory

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Neil Elkes of The Birmingham Mail writes that all restaurants, take aways, pubs and cafes should be forced by law to display their food hygiene ratings according to Birmingham’s licensing chief.

powell_tipton_slasher_10_0_storyAnd if you don’t like it, the ghost of my great-great-great grandfather, William Perry, also known as the Tipton Slasher, will come and fight for mandatory display, just like he fought on the canals outside Birmingham for passage.

Currently food outlets can choose whether or not to display their ratings to customer and generally only those with four or five stars do.

But Barbara Dring, chairman of the council’s licensing and public protection committee, is urging the Government to make it compulsory for food sellers to display their rating.

She believes that by forcing venue to highlight their ratings will encourage the minority who are unsafe to raise their game.

The ratings of every outlet serving prepared food can be found on the Food Standards Agency website and last autumn they revealed that 127 places had been rated zero – the lowest score available meaning they are often filthy, have pest infestations or unsafe food.

Those venues are often closed and can only re-open once cleared by council inspectors. Repeat offenders are prosecuted .

Coun Dring (Lab, Oscott) said: “There are more than 7,500 food businesses in Birmingham and we want to them not only to be compliant with food law, but we want to encourage them to be better.

“One way to do this would be if it were a legal requirement to display their food business rating on their front door as they do in Wales.

“Currently the Food Standards Agency’s scores on the doors system is voluntary – there’s no incentive or compulsion for premises rated 0 or 1 to display their latest rating, so I want to see the Government make this a legal requirement for all food businesses.”

 

Texting to reduce foodborne illnesses in Evanston, Ill.

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Two texts. That’s all it takes to avoid potential stomach pains in Evanston, Ill.

SMS_Health_ScoresOr at least, that was the goal behind an endeavor that pairs the city’s restaurant inspection scores on Yelp with text message alerts for diners. When the SMS program launched early in 2015 it was a quiet release. In fact, Erika Storlie, Evanston’s deputy manager, described the undertaking as more of a four-month side project than anything else.

The city had just completed a project with Yelp to feed restaurant inspection scores to the review site and wanted to investigate joining the scores with its 311 non-emergency texting app. The problem was, Evanston’s 311 app required a person on the other end to retrieve or record data and submit replies.

“So then, that began the exploration of, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be cool if we could text the restaurant name to 311 and automatically get the inspection score back?’” Storlie said. “It kind of came from the fact we were using these two different types of technologies and we wanted to marry them.”

Whether it’s Evanston’s Kafein coffee house on Chicago Avenue or the Peckish Pig on Howard Street, finding scores is simple. Diners just text “food” to the city’s 311 number, and after a prompt, enter a restaurant name and they’re returned the recent score and inspection date.

It’s simple and much easier than Yelp’s mobile app, which compels users to tap and swipe their way to a restaurant’s “More Info” tab and deep dive through a list of miscellaneous information.

Since Yelp and the texting services launched, Evanston officials said there’s an interest in tracking how public scoring influences health inspections.

 

Health inspectors dress like that? China steps up crackdown on food and drug safety crimes

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Chinese authorities have recently unveiled measures to facilitate coordination between administrative and judicial organs in handling food and drug safety cases.

china.food.safety.jan.16A document to the effect was jointly issued by China Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate as well as the executive office of the food safety commission under the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

In the past, problems, such as ambiguous standards in case transferring or undefined responsibilities of different authorities in investigation, have hampered China’s effort to combat food and drug safety crimes.