Tag Archives: starbucks

The data reported doesn’t point to human poop in iced coffee

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That’s what I told Sara Miller of Live Science in reference to a BBC story on the safety of popular cafe drinks.

The original story Sara was asking about is from a BBC investigation into the safety of ice, iced drinks and coffee shop environments.

Samples of iced drinks from Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Caffe Nero contained varying levels of the bacteria, the BBC’s Watchdog found.

Expert Tony Lewis said the levels found were “concerning”. “These should not be present at any level – never mind the significant numbers found,” he added.

Cleanliness of tables, trays and high chairs at the chains was also tested at 30 branches. Seven out of 10 samples of Costa ice were found to be contaminated with bacteria found in faeces.

What is concerning to the expert? Fecal coliform.

I was introduced to fecal coliform when investigating wash water and vegetables at Ontario (that’s in Canada) greenhouses 15 years ago. We were looking for analytical methods to provide some feedback to producers. We sampled the water for coliform and generic E. coli – and the veggies for generic E. coli and Salmonella. We had initially started looking for coliform and fecal coliform but some smart produce microbiologists suggested the indicator group wasn’t telling folks much.

Or as Mike Doyle and Marilyn Erickson wrote in Microbe in 2006, ‘the fecal coliform assay should at a minimum be redefined to specifically qualify that it is not a reliable indicator of either E. coli or the presence of fecal contamination.’

Makes for good headlines. Doesn’t tell folks anything about risk. Or feces. Might as well sample for covfefe.

Chapman also noted that he’d be more focused on what’s going on in the coffee shops. For example, do employees wash their hands regularly and after handling potentially contaminated foods and products? Do they sanitize the equipment properly? These behaviors could be more indicative of the overall health risks the beverages and foods pose to consumers, he said.

In addition, it’s unclear what type of testing the investigators used for the BBC report. Knowing these methods would provide more useful information, Chapman said. If investigators looked only for bacterial DNA, for example, you wouldn’t know if the bacteria were alive or dead.

“We eat dead bacteria all the time,” he added, referring to the fact that dead bacteria aren’t going to make you sick.

We eat live bacteria all the time – and it doesn’t cause illness. I meant to say we eat dead pathogens all the time.

And if you want poop in your iced coffee, make it from kopi luwak.

Sewage forces Ireland Starbucks to close for a week

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Tim O’Brien of The Irish Times reports a Starbucks outlet was among 10 food businesses to receive temporary closure orders during September from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

starbucks-sewageThe agency ordered the outlet at 21 Great Georges Street in Waterford to close its doors on September 27th. It remained shut for more than a week, reopening on October 5th.

The FSAI declines to give details of why closure orders are served on any outlet, but its chief executive, Dr Pamela Byrne, said they are only issued for serious risks or regular breaches of hygiene regulations.

“Enforcement orders and most especially closure orders and prohibition orders are never served for minor food safety breaches,” she said.

“They are served on food businesses only when a serious risk to consumer health has been identified or where there are a number of ongoing breaches of food legislation and that largely tends to relate to a grave hygiene or operational issue.”

A spokeswoman for Entertainment Enterprises Group, which operates the Starbucks chain in Ireland, said the Waterford closure was a result of contaminated water flowing into the shop.

“The problem was with the main drainage pipes,” she said.

“There was a rupture of the main pipe in the middle of the road outside our store. Water then seeped under the road and pavement into our basement.

“The pipes were repaired and the store is restored to its proper condition. The store reopened yesterday afternoon.”

Starbucks didn’t know who supplied ham

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Having pulled thousands of unsafe, spoiled ham sandwiches from its shelves on three occasions, Starbucks now claims its meat vendor owes nearly $5 million.

Levi Pulkkinen of Seattlepi.Com  writes that according to a recent lawsuit, Starbucks didn’t even know who was producing the offending ham until starbucks.ham.listeria.jul.13months after complaints began coming in from customers. As it turned out, the primary vendor had subcontracted out the coffee giant’s ham order.

At issue in the lawsuit filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court for Western Washington are ham sandwiches filled with spoiled meat bought from a vendor.

The lawsuit indicates Starbucks trashed only some of the sandwiches containing ham bought from the vendor. Sandwiches containing meat from the supplier continued to be sold at Starbucks stores for nearly two weeks after the company learned at least some of the ham purchased from Wellshire Farms Inc. was tainted.

A Starbucks spokesman declined to say when the company stopped selling all the sandwiches using the ham provided by Wellshire Farms.

Speaking Friday, spokesman Zak Hutson said that the ham used in the hot breakfast sandwiches – which were pulled from Starbucks shelves three times before Starbucks changed ham suppliers – was a different from the Wellshire-provided meat used chain’s cold sandwiches. The lawsuit indicates cold sandwiches using the Wellshire-sourced ham remained for sale for 11 days after Starbucks found “potentially harmful bacteria” on ham bought from the New Jersey pork products supplier.

Why I never buy coffee; upscale Hong Kong Starbucks gets water from toilet tap?

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A Starbucks in the Bank of China Tower has been using water from a tap in a toilet to make beverages since its opening in October 2011.

USA Today reports that images from local newspaper Apple Daily showed the tap with a sign that said “Starbucks only” a few feet away from a urinal Toilet-Water-Coffee-in-Hong-Kong-Starbucks-Makes-Customers-Uneasyin the dingy washroom, which the paper said was in the building’s carpark.

“Starbucks, you need to make an open declaration that such crap is not repeated anywhere else, and fire the idiot who thought up such kind of water supply ‘solution,’ ” wrote one angry customer on Starbuck’s Hong Kong Facebook page.

In its response to the poster, the store apologized. “While the water used at that store was drinking water and certified as safe, we would like to clarify any misperceptions, as quality and safety have always been our top priority,” the store’s post said. “We are now using distilled water to serve that store while we work with all parties on acceptable options.”

Starbucks spokeswoman Wendy Pang told the AFP that the water was collected less than five times a day by staff from a tap in a toilet located near the store that was dedicated for collecting drinking water.

“There is no direct water supply to that particular store, that’s why we need to obtain the drinking water from the nearest source in the building,” Pang said.

The water from the toilet tap would go through a filtration system in the store ensuring it passed local and World Health Organization standards, Pang said.

Hong Kong University School of Public Health professor Benjamin Cowling told the AFP the worry is that pathogens from the restroom will end up in the Starbucks food preparation area.

“I wouldn’t go to the restaurant in the first place if I knew they were having potentially risky hygiene practices,” Cowling said.

Rubbing alcohol? Woman charged over poisoned juice at California Starbucks store

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A California woman who police say planted two bottles of tainted orange juice at a San Jose Starbucks has been charged with attempted murder, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, is accused of adding rubbing alcohol to the contents of the bottles and then placing them into a refrigerated display sbucksorangejuicecase, Police Sgt. Jason Dwyer told reporters.

“According to our San Jose firefighters that were on scene and the fire captain there — they really are the experts there — it was a lethal dose,” he said.

Behbehanian was arrested Monday after a customer spotted her allegedly pulling out two bottles of orange juice from a bag and putting them in the display case, he said.

The customer reported it to employees, according to police. The customer also got a license plate number, and investigators later traced the plate to Behbehanian’s residence, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson said.

The employees immediately pulled the bottles of orange juice from the display case, and the store was evacuated until firefighters could determine the contents of the bottles, Hutson said.

Hand dryers might be better for the environment; worse for limiting disease spread

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I like to write at Starbucks. There’s something about the background activity and lattes, mixed with Neil Young on my iPod, that helps me focus. I hit up a somewhat new outlet in Raleigh today and needed a restroom break. After washing my hands I looked around the bathroom for paper towels and all I could find was an air dryer (right, exactly as shown). I wanted paper towels, because using them matters; drying friction helps remove pathogens.

I don’t like blow dryers because the literature shows they accumulate microorganisms from toilet aerosols, and can cause contamination of hands as they are dried by the dryer (Coates et al., 1987; Knights, et al., 1993; Redway,et al., 1994). In 2010, Anna Snelling and colleagues at the University of Bradford (UK) also showed that drying with a blow dryer can recontaminate hands and rubbing with paper towel was the most effective method to reduce pathogens.

Handwashing and food service food safety guru Pete Snyder at the St. Paul-based Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management summarized key aspects of handwashing and drying . Pete says that after hands are washed and rinsed, they must be thoroughly dried and cites data that shows 1-2 log reduction of pathogens from drying. Water and soap loosen the attachment of pathogen to hands. A rinse step dilutes what has been loosened but drying (and the friction associated) is the next step that matters – and the bugs have to go somewhere; I’d rather that be a paper towel instead of being blown all over my pants.

Pete also notes that it is also apparent that many individuals do not dry their hands thoroughly when using a blow dryer; hence, moisture, which is conducive to microbial growth, remains on hands, or people dry their hands on their clothing.

Starbucks, proper handwashing requires guest access to the proper tools – and that means vigorously running water, soap and paper towel.

Coates, D., D. N. Hutchinson, and F. J. Bolton. 1987. Survival of thermophilic campylobacter on fingertips and their elimination by washing and disinfection. Epidem. Inf. 99:265-274.

Knights, B., C. Evans, S. Barrass, and B. McHardy. 1993. Hand drying – A survey of efficiency and hygiene. The Applied Ecology Research Group, University of Westminster. London, UK.

Redway, K., B. Knights, Z. Bozoky, A. Theobald, and S.Hardcastle. 1994. Hand drying: A study of bacterial types associated with different hand drying methods and with hot air dryers. Applied Ecology Research Group, University of Westminster. London, UK. 14. Brodie, J. 1965. Hand hygiene. Scot. Med. J. 10:1:115-125.
 

Rat sipping Starbucks syrup

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Starbucks has instituted several new procedures in response to a YouTube video shot April 21 which shows what’s believed to be a black rat inside the Terra Nova Starbucks (that’s in B.C., in Canada), searching for food while walking on the counter amongst the syrups.

Steve Chong, Richmond’s chief public health inspector, said that an environmental health officer met with Starbucks management on Tuesday morning to deal with the concerns.

"Based on the inspection today, there is no indication that there’s a rodent infestation," Chong told The Richmond Review.

Chong said the pest control employee noted some rodent access points, which have now been pest-proofed.

Chong believes from the grainy images that it was a black rat seen foraging around the syrups in the YouTube video. They wander up to 100 yards from their home.

That rat’s got happy feet.