I get called regularly by some journalist wanting to stick it to the man – to show the shoddy side of the food business. And what better place than some local café.

I advise caution and getting the story right – journalistic basics which have substantially declined over the past 20 years, especially at the local level.

On June 16, 2009, New Zealand’s TV3 consumer affairs program, Target, showed an undercover camera segment looking at the hygiene standards of several Auckland cafes.

The New Zealand Herald explains food was bought from the cafes and then samples sent for laboratory testing, one of which came back with a high reading of fecal coliform. The show attributed that sample to Ponsonby-based Cafe Cezanne.

Target wrote to Cafe Cezanne's owners telling them a chicken sandwich from their cafe had tested positive for faecal coliforms. However, the letter contained incorrect information about the date of purchase.

The owners questioned whether the sample was from their cafe but Target went ahead with the broadcast.

The program was forced to apologize the following week after it found a mistake had been made in labeling the samples, and the show broadcast a statement saying: "Due to a human error by a former Target staff member coding the results, we cannot confirm which cafe produced this high fecal coliform count".

Cafe Cezanne complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) that the original item and the apology were inaccurate and unfair. They said the apology had not stated that the sample had been wrongly attributed to Cafe Cezanne.

In a decision released today, the BSA said it had found Target was in possession of two documents, which unequivocally exonerated the cafe, before the apology.
The documents showed the contaminated sample was collected and delivered to the laboratory on a different day from the sample from Cafe Cezanne, and it was therefore clear the contaminated sample definitely did not come from Cafe Cezanne.

That, uh, oversight resulted in almost $40,000 in fines.

TV3 broadcaster TVWorks was fined $5000 for the incorrect allegation and another $5000 for the apology, which it said did not unequivocally clear the cafe.
It was also ordered to pay the cafe owners' full legal costs of $28,068.75, and to broadcast an apology and summary of the BSA's decision on Target.

As well, it must publicize the decision on radio stations and in a newspaper advertisement.

Getting sick and dying while eating food in a hospital sorta sucks. So does going to a funeral and picking up norovirus.

New Zealand health authorities are investigating an outbreak of suspected norovirus linked to food after more than 40 people fell ill following an April 28 funeral and reception for a leading Auckland musician.

A spokeswoman for the Auckland Regional Public Health Service said yesterday that it was notified on May 3 that some people who had attended the function had become sick with gastro-intestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.

The public health service spokeswoman said the food supplied at the post-funeral function, which included sandwiches and deli items, was suspected to be the source of the infection.

The caterer, who did not wish to be named, said she supplied around three funerals a week.

She said food poisoning had not been established yet in the case of the funeral, and the woman who made the sandwiches that day has a certificate in food handling.

"Everything was bought fresh on the day."

Fresh does not mean safe.

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority has just released a couple of new food safety advertisements for television.

Chapman and I looked them over, would have liked a thermometer, and don’t like the message that food safety is simple (otherwise, we wouldn’t all have jobs) but overall the ads seem better than most. As Marshall McLuhan said, those who try to distinguish between entertainment and education don’t know the first thing about either.

What do you think? 

A campground in New Zealand is set to reopen after a norovirus outbreak was linked to the camp’s water supply.

The Nelson Mail reports the outbreak of suspected norovirus at the Golden Bay Holiday Park may have been caused by sewage contaminating a creek running through the campground

During a routine bathing water survey of the area's beaches a fortnight ago, Tasman District Council environmental protection officers found high levels of E.coli contamination at the mouth of the Tukurua Stream, which runs through the campground. The level was 700 most probable number (mpn).

Council environment planning officer Dennis Bush-King said a level of 240mpn would see the council start "intensive monitoring". At 500mpn, signs would go up warning people not to swim in the water.