Soft-serve safety redux
In part two of the Toronto Star's investigation of soft-serve ice cream safety reporters have stumbled upon a snack bar with an extraordinary amount of coliform in the treats. The biggest offender found during the blitz was the Kew Gardens snack bar (with coliform above 1000000 cfu/gram). When I was growing up, I probably visited that snack bar 10-15 times a summer.
When asked about the 1000000 cfu/g measure, Rick Holley, microbiologist from U of Manitoba responded:
"Oh my God. This is not good," With results this high, "the product is hazardous," said Holley, adding the spectre of serious health implications is also magnified.
"The real concern here is listeria," he said. "And it's going to happen."
After learning of the result on Thursday, [Kew Gardens snack bar] manager Danny Foulidis ordered the machine shut down and sanitized.
"We've always been a clean establishment. We've never had an issue. If there's something we need to change to make things better, it's not a problem on our part."
During the past week, Gerry Lawrence, food safety manager at Toronto Public Health, has fielded calls from worried residents asking how to tell if soft ice cream is safe.
His advice: "If I'm buying ice cream for a youngster, I don't think I want to buy it from somebody that has greasy hands or isn't wearing a clean smock or even a baseball cap."
Holley, a member of a federal advisory panel struck in response to the Maple Leaf Foods listeria crisis, chuckles at the suggestion that protection comes down to gauging the cleanliness of an operator. "That's not the complete picture. You might have one person of that kind of appearance who plays a very minor role in handling products that are risky, such as these are.
Great quote by Holley after a poor suggestion from Lawrence. Visual cleanliness isn't a good indicator of anything, especially whether someone is going to get sick.
"It really does require that the folks who are responsible for making sure that all of the licence requirements of these people are met are conscientious in what they do and look at the whole picture. Whether or not they have time to do that is another issue."
The Star goes on to report on one of the factors that could lead to soft-serve contamination, the infamous O-ring.
Health inspectors generally do not check the inner mechanisms of machines, and experts warn that's where the danger lies, particularly in a $1.85 rubber O-ring that seals an area around a drive shaft that spins the ice cream. Michael Minor, former president of the Ontario branch of the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors, said a worn ring can cause contamination to seep into the ice cream.
"Product that leaks from the refrigerated mixing vat into the back of the machine because of a faulty O-ring can be pulled back in to the soft-serve mix through reverse flow," Minor said.
Manufacturers suggest the rings be replaced every three months.
Minor is concerned some operators lack the knowledge or will to maintain their machines, which is central to assuring a safe product.
"This is not rocket science. It's not statistical analysis. This is a machine that needs attention and you need to understand it."
Holley and Minor both touch on one of the tenets of food safety culture: Operators need to know the risks associated with their products and how to manage them. Good operators know about sanitation, equipment maintenance and selecting good suppliers.
Manager served ice cream allegedly containing poop; chef offers his DNA for testing
The gelato caper gripping Australia had several twists and a couple of great soundbites Tuesday morning (Australia time).
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that security camera footage of an incident in which staff at the Coogee Bay Hotel allegedly served a family a cup of gelato laced with human faeces shows the dessert being delivered to the family by the restaurant's manager. …
"She was concerned about the family's experience and she had the idea of offering a complimentary dessert to try and make some amends," said the hotel's general manager, Tony Williams.
Meanwhile, the family's lawyer, Steven Lewis, of Slater & Gordon, also rubbished newspaper reports the family had links to a rival pub as a "Kevin Bacon … six degrees of separation [defence]. My question is: 'Did Kevin Bacon put the faeces in the ice-cream?"'.
Stephen and Jessica Whyte, along with their three young children and another family, were at the hotel to watch the NRL grand final, but after a series of complaints became suspicious when they were given a free bowl of gelato. "The real issue is that we were fed, as a family, shit, at someone's pub," Mr Whyte told 2UE.
Yesterday the NSW Food Authority announced it was investigating, and the hotel's management confirmed it had contacted Maroubra police in preparation for possible criminal charges against anyone who might have tampered with food at the hotel.
Meanwhile, the head chef at the Coogee Bay Hotel, Adam Wood, who had tendered his resignation before the incident and had continued to work at the hotel for several weeks afterwards, offered to put himself up for DNA testing.
Mr Wood's arrival was trumpeted by the hotel's general manager, Tony Williams, in a media statement about the hotel's revamped beer garden this month.
"Executive Chef Adam Wood [was] poached from Japan where he headed up kitchens for the Swissotel, Osaka and Foreign Correspondent's Press Club of Japan in Tokyo and brings extensive five star international and three hat experience with him," the statement read.
Why he resigned only weeks after being heralded as the hotel's most senior chef remains unclear.
Raw milk with campylobacter sickens at least seven across Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Department of Health is warning consumers who purchased raw milk from Hendricks Farm & Dairy of Telford, Montgomery County, to immediately discard the raw milk and any items made with the raw milk due to potential bacterial contamination. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized.
Recently, individuals who consumed raw milk purchased from the dairy were found to have gastrointestinal illness due to Campylobacter, a bacterial infection. Since September 1, a total of seven confirmed cases of Campylobacter infection have been reported among raw milk drinkers in seven unrelated households in Pennsylvania and a neighboring state. Other individuals in these households have also experienced similar gastrointestinal illness. The investigation is ongoing.
The Department of Agriculture today suspended the farm's raw milk permit and instructed the owner to stop selling raw milk for human consumption until the permit is reinstated. The Department of Agriculture will require two raw milk samples drawn at least one day apart to be tested negative for bacterial pathogens before raw milk sales may resume.
For more information about Campylobacter, visit the Department of Health at www.health.state.pa.us or call 1-877-PA-HEALTH.
In addition to showing up in Sarah Palin’s Alaskan peas via bird poop, campylobacter was found in a sample of Grade A raw cream produced by Organic Pastures in California. Fortunately, no illnesses have been associated with the poop in raw California cream.
