When catering a meal for health professionals, it may be important to get food safety basics right.

The Pueblo City-County Health Department in Colorado has temporarily closed All Seasons Catering, citing a variety of violations found after more than 30 people were sickened by food the company served at a luncheon last week.

The health department found evidence of Clostridium perfringens toxin in a beef-and-gravy dish, butter, tomatoes and lettuce the caterer served during last Tuesday's Pueblo Community Health Center annual meeting and luncheon.

An inspection following the barfing found:

• Critical Lack of demonstration of knowledge by PIC. Kitchen manager admitted to not taking final cook temperatures, and holding temperatures of all food, did not know cooking temperature of poultry should be 165 degrees.

• Critical Employees not handwashing when required. Observed employees changing tasks, changing gloves, handling ready to eat foods without washing hands

• Critical Observed employee "trying" to check temperature of pasta with bare hands, not using a thermometer.

• Critical Improper cooling time/temperature specified time parameters not met. three pans of cooked vegetables made 4/25/12, holding in walk-in refrigerator at 67-72 degrees, did not meet proper cooling parameters.

The Slovak Legion in Thunder Bay, Ontario (that’s in Canada, and it’s cold) hosted a Christmas meal on Dec. 14, 2010; at least 34 diners ended up barfing.

Clostridium prefringens (that’s perfringens – dp) has been identified as the bacteria that caused the illnesses. It was found in the cooked turkey sample and stool samples that were submitted for testing.

The Thunder Bay District Health Unit notes almost all food-related outbreaks of C. perfringens are associated with inadequately cooled or reheated meals such as turkey dinners. Outbreaks are usually traced to large-scale food premises.

To prevent food-related illness:
• Educate food handlers on correct food safety practices
• Serve meat dishes hot, or as soon as they are cooked
• Do not partially cook meat and poultry one day and reheat the next
• Divide large amounts of food into smaller containers to allow rapid cooling

Try out our holiday meal food safety infosheet at foodsafetyinfosheet.com.

I didn’t even come up with that headline. Those science journal writers are developing a sense of humor.

Eriksen et al. write in Eurosurveillance today:

Food poisoning outbreaks caused by Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin occur occasionally in Europe but have become less common in recent years. This paper presents the microbiological and epidemiological results of a large C. perfringens outbreak occurring simultaneously at two weddings that used the same caterer.

The outbreak involved several London locations and required coordination across multiple agencies. A case-control study (n=134) was carried out to analyze possible associations between the food consumed and becoming ill. Food, environmental and stool samples were tested for common causative agents, including enterotoxigenic C. perfringens. The clinical presentation and the epidemiological findings were compatible with C. perfringens food poisoning and C. perfringens enterotoxin was detected in stool samples from two cases.

The case-control study found statistically significant associations between becoming ill and eating either a specific chicken or lamb dish prepared by the same food handler of the implicated catering company. A rapid outbreak investigation with preliminary real-time results and the successful collaboration between the agencies and the caterer led to timely identification and rectification of the failures in the food handling practices.

In the discussion, the authors write,

A blast chiller is normally used for cooling large quantities of food quickly by this particular caterer; however it was not being used appropriately at the time of the incident. Temperature control of foods during preparation, cooling, transportation and reheating was poor. Furthermore, the vans used for food transport had no refrigeration and these events took place in July. The evidence of insufficient hygiene, cooling and reheating at the catering company during transport and at both venues (according to environmental health department inspections) are in keeping with a toxin-related gastroenteritis outbreak, including C. perfringens.