They don’t get Britain in Texas; bad advice on safe chicken livers

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Douglas Powell

Communication by stagecoach may be a Texas tradition but maybe they would have heard of all the outbreaks of campylobacter in poorly prepared chicken pate in the UK.

David Uygur, chef and owner of Lucia, told the Dallas News, it’s important to cook the livers just to medium doneness, signaled by a rosy-pink center. “I think well-done chicken livers are gross. It’s not the end of the world if you overcook them, but they will have a grainy texture and a more iron-y flavor.”

Color tells a chef nothing. Use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and stick it in.

Rodent poop by slushy machine in Texas; employee bolts on camera

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Two Raymondville convenience stores continue to rack up high demerits on Food 4 Thought.

BreakTime on 1095 East Hidalgo Avenue scored the most with 30 demerits on a health inspection report.

Kitchen cops found ‘fresh’ rodent droppings in the cabinet area under the slushy machines.

The contamination is a repeat violation from another health inspection less than six months ago.

“Why do you think the rats like this area?” Action 4’s Ryan Wolf asked a manager on duty.

“I have no idea,” the manager, who would only identify himself as Sam, said.

The Food Patrol fired off other questions dealing with public safety concerns at Sam.

He was also asked about the owner’s previous claim on Food 4 Thought that he would take the appropriate action to stop the rodent contamination.

More than 30 ‘fresh’ droppings were discovered during a health inspection in May.

The filth turned up once again in the slushy machine area.

Sam did claim to be fairly new on the job; however, he did not stick around to answer all the Food Patrol’s questions.

He was caught on tape abruptly leaving the store in his vehicle.

Federal prisoners in Texas ate meat intended for pets

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Federal prisoners in Texas unknowingly ate pet food due to problems with the resale of meat from an East Texas food company that specializes in fajita meat, according to federal authorities.

The Dallas Morning News reports John Soules Foods, Inc. of Tyler has agreed to pay $392,000 to settle a case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It involved raw “beef trimmings” that were intended for pet food cans but ended up being eaten by humans.

The government’s three-year investigation found that the problems occurred in late 2006 and early 2007.

John Soules Foods had problems “getting some of their beef trimmings product to freeze properly,” authorities said.

As a result, the company sold some boxes of those trimmings to a meat broker who agreed to sell it as pet food, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The boxes were not marked as pet food.

That broker violated the agreement and sold the trimmings to another broker for human food. Some of it ended up being sold to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for human consumption.

On the bandwagon; food safety culture compliments audits, testing at Texas produce firms

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Douglas Powell

Pamela Riemenschneider of The Packer writes that audits, testing and food safety programs are a part of daily life for any produce operation.

In the Rio Grande Valley, companies work to foster a culture of food safety among their employees.

“One of the challenges of a food safety program is to not treat it as if you’re studying for the test, but to accept it and embrace it as a way of doing business,” said Chris Eddy, general manager of Edinburg, Texas-based Frontera Produce Ltd.

“That’s our focus, and we’re seeing a lot of success there and getting a buy-in from our employees.”

That “it’s time for our annual audit, let’s do an extra sweep” attitude is long gone.

The company is spreading this culture out to all of the sheds it operates and represents, Eddy said.

Curtis DeBerry, president of Boerne, Texas-based Progreso Produce Ltd., said his company is rolling out in-house microbial testing in addition to its regular audits and Global Food Safety Initiative certification.

“We’ve gone completely out on our own,” he said.

“We’re doing the microbial testing in-house weekly. We’re going to step it up and be much more involved in the testing itself and the auditing in between, both in our facilities and out in the fields.”

DeBerry said his company’s enhanced focus was driven by the buyer community and Progreso’s decision to enhance the program.

At Bebo Distributing Inc. in Pharr, Texas, the packing lines are getting mechanical enhancements in the name of food safety.

The company recently installed a new packing line that includes a chlorine wash.

All this sounds great and shows how food safety requires numerous flexible and creative approaches. But why weren’t these firms and thousands of others actively enhancing the safety of fresh fruits and vegetables in the 1990s, when produce had clearly emerged as a significant source of foodborne illness?

Texas water park linked to 10 cases of cryptosporidiosis

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Douglas Powell

The Lions Junction Family Water Park in Temple, Texas, has been linked to 10 cases of cryptosporidiosis, but the park has been disinfected, inspected and is safe and open for business, health officials said Friday.

The Bell County Health District says it sent personnel to the water park on Tuesday, when it was closed for disinfection.

Earlier Friday, the City of Temple confirmed only that the park was linked to at least two cases of cryptosporidiosis, but said the issue has been resolved.

A tabke of water-park related outbreaks is available at

http://bites.ksu.edu/water-park-related-outbreaks.

3 Austin restaurants closed for selling stolen supermarket meat

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Douglas Powell

Eater reports that 60-year-old East Austin barbecue legend Sam’s BBQ, Willie’s Bar-B-Que and La Morenita all had their business licenses revoked as a result of Operation Meat Locker. Austin police had been working with HEB for the past three months to bust meat thieves — it’s a "growing crime" in Central Texas.

Apparently thieves shove meat down their pants to sneak it out of grocery stores and "walk long distances or ride the bus" in order to sell it to restaurants.

Shockingly, investigators discovered "food safety was not a priority."

Officers posing as meat thieves approached 25 restaurants with the stolen meat, and only the three listed above went for it. Five arrests have been made. The restaurants can apply to have their permits reinstated but must remain closed until that happens.

Seven stricken in Texas E. coli O157:H7 outbreak

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Douglas Powell

Seven confirmed cases of E. coli O157:H7 amongst children are being investigated in Amarillo, Texas.

Dr. Roger Smalligan, the public health authority for Potter and Randall counties, said four children, most under the age of 5, have been hospitalized. Smalligan said officials are trying to determine how and where the children might have contracted the bacterial infection.

Smalligan said six of the seven children had some contact but couldn’t discuss what that contact was or if the bacteria was showing up in a certain part of town or at a certain location. He did say that several of the children were related to each other.

3 kids, 1 adult sick from salmonella linked to raw milk in Texas

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Douglas Powell

WFAA reports that at least four people, including three children, become seriously ill after drinking raw milk, according to state health officials.

Mary Chiles, a 57-year-old resident of Dallas, was quoted as saying, "They said it would be a while before I got my strength back.”

Chiles said she tried the milk after a health-conscious friend told her the all-natural, unpasteurized beverage might improve her health.

State investigators have now blocked Lavon Farms in Plano, where Chiles purchased her carton, from selling raw milk until tests are complete.

Owner Todd Moore told News 8 the farm sold thousands of gallons of raw milk and never received complaints of any illness.

It wasn’t clear from initial media reports when the illnesses occurred.

FDA tests confirm listeria at Texas food plant linked to 4 deaths

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Douglas Powell

When state regulators closed SanGar Fresh Cut Produce of San Antonio after linking the plant with four, maybe five deaths due to listeria, on Oct. 20, 2010, Sangar President Kenneth Sanquist Jr. said in a statement,

“The state’s claim that some of our produce now fails to meet health standards directly contradicts independent testing that was conducted on the same products. This independent testing shows our produce to be absolutely safe, and we are aggressively fighting the state’s erroneous findings.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this morning they found the same listeria at the facility, matching testing done by the Texas Department of State Health Services at SanGar.

The tests found listeria bacteria in multiple locations in the plant.

Messages left for an attorney for SanGar by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.

Texas fresh-cut plant shut after links to 5 listeria deaths in celery

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Sometime in Jan. 2010, someone in Texas got really sick with listeria.

By mid-May, 2010, five were sick and two were dead – all from the same strain of listeria. By Oct. 20, 2010, five were sick and five had died from the same strain of listeria. Most of the listeriosis patients were elderly with serious underlying health problems, and many were hospitalized before and during the onset of their infection.

Health types said six of the 10 cases were conclusively linked to chopped celery sold by Sangar Fresh Cut Produce of San Antonio, so yesterday, the Texas Department of State Health Services ordered Sangar to stop processing food and recall all products shipped from the plant since January. The order was issued after laboratory tests of chopped celery from the plant indicated the presence of Listeria monocytogenes.

Sangar President Kenneth Sanquist Jr. took issue with the state, adding in a statement,

DSHS inspectors say that in the Sanger plant, they found a condensation leak above a food product area, soil on a preparation table and hand washing issues.

The recalled products – primarily cut fresh produce in sealed packages – were distributed to restaurants and institutional entities, such as hospitals and schools, and are not believed to be sold in grocery stores.

For a glimpse of the Sanger plant, see the video below from Aug. 13, 2010, when Sanquist told KENS5 TV in San Antonio there should be tougher standards in the fresh-cut industry, adding,

"All we’re saying is everyone should have that standard. There is an entire process that we have to follow on a daily basis, if you miss a step or two steps or try to take a short cut…children could get very sick."

Sanquist said many businesses only require their produce company have a recall program in place and that’s simply not enough prevention.

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