Fat Duck spared, chippy owner charged by local council after E. coli O157 illnesses
The Fat Duck sickened 529 customers with norovirus, adopted a ridiculous PR strategy, and continues to blame others even though employees were working sick. The local council decided not to prosecute.
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The Llay Fish Bar, thought to be the source of an E. coli O157 outbreak that sickened four including a new mother left in a coma, will be prosecuted by the Wrexham Council.
It’s like television sports presenter and Fat Duck norovirus victim Jim Rosenthal said a couple of days ago:
“If it was a café at a lay-by doing what he did they would have been taken to court long ago.”
Boxing promoter Frank Warren, who is also still awaiting compensation, said,
"The whole way they have handled this has been a disaster from start to finish. To hear that the council isn't going to take him on doesn't surprise me – it's just because of who he is rather than what he's done or not done.”
Fat Duck won't face charges - 'I'll never set foot in there again' says food poisoning victim
The Telegraph reports this morning that Heston Blumenthal and the Fat Duck restaurant – home to 529 cases of norovirus earlier this year – will not face criminal charges despite failures in reporting illness and what appears to be an overall lack of food safety awareness.
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Windsor and Maidenhead Council said that although the restaurant could have taken greater steps to combat the norovirus outbreak, there was insufficient evidence to take formal action.
Jim Rosenthal, the television sports presenter, who was among those affected after dining at the restaurant to celebrate his wife Chrissy's birthday, said,
“I'm disappointed but not surprised. Unfortunately, the council has probably been forced to take a pragmatic view and decide against what would probably be the enormous cost of mounting a case against someone who can afford the best lawyers." If it was a café at a lay-by doing what he did they would have been taken to court long ago. Chrissy and I will never set foot in there again.”
Boxing promoter Frank Warren, who is also still awaiting compensation, said,
"The whole way they have handled this has been a disaster from start to finish. To hear that the council isn't going to take him on doesn't surprise me – it's just because of who he is rather than what he's done or not done.”
A spokeswoman for the Duckster claimed that the HPA report was "flawed" and continued to blame others.
“We are not surprised by the local authority's decision, given that the Health Protection Agency's report clearly concludes that responsibility for the outbreak lies with a shellfish supplier and the local water authority after its shellfish was contaminated with the norovirus. Regarding the assumptions made about The Fat Duck in the report, both our own experts and those appointed by our insurers believe them to be flawed.”
Fat Duck criticizes health types at chef conference
From the this-guy-just-can’t-shut up file, Heston Blumenthal whined, err, told a conference in London yesterday that the Health Protection Agency (HPA) should do more to support the industry, stating,
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“There is a real lack of support to restaurants from the HPA when it comes to handling something like a norovirus outbreak and it is only because of the status of the Fat Duck that we survived this. If we were a small independent restaurant, we would have been forced to close as a result of this. Our industry is so fragile and there is so little support.”
The HPA released a report on its investigation into the norovirus outbreak at the Fat Duck, which affected more than 500 diners, earlier this month stating the official cause was contaminated shellfish. Among the findings:
• oysters were served raw;
• razor clams may not have been appropriately handled or cooked;
• the outbreak continued for at least six weeks (between January 6 and February 22) because of ongoing transmission at the restaurant - which may have occurred through continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both
; and,
• several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including delayed response to the incident, staff working when they should have been off sick and using the wrong environmental cleaning products
Blumenthal went on to tell the conference that both the experts appointed by the Fat Duck and those by its insurers believed that there were a number of flaws in the HPA report, including its criticism of the restaurant’s staff sickness policy and its use of anti-bacterial cleaning agents.
“Some of the elements in the report were supposition,” he said.
Blumenthal also criticized HPA for the way it released the report, arguing he and his team of insurers and legal experts were given no time to analyse its findings before it was released to the public.
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“We were told we would be given 24 hours to analyse the report before it would be released to the public but in fact we were only given three hours,” he said.
That’s more warning than the 529 people who were barfing on widely expensive food porn received.
And Heston, there’s nothing that builds consumer confidence more than have a government agency in tight with the industry it regulates. It’s the Health Protection Agency, not the Boost Restaurant Revenues Agency. HPA is to protect human health, and encourage places like restaurants to do the same. Making 529 customers sick is bad for business, but not the fault of the HPA.
This guy provides so much material I don’t have to resort to calling him the love child of Alton Brown and longtime Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player Mats Sundin.
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Fat Duck still spinning but sorry for making 529 diners sick 7 months ago
I don’t know who does public relations for the Fat Duck restaurant but they should be fired.
Seven months after sickening 529 customers with norovirus, Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal today said,
"I am relieved to be able to finally offer my fullest apologies to all those who were affected by the outbreak at the Fat Duck. It was extremely frustrating to not be allowed to personally apologise to my guests until now.
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"It was devastating to me and my whole team, as it was to many of our guests and I wish to invite them all to return to the Fat Duck at their convenience."
Wow. Saying sorry is not an expression of guilt. It is an expression of empathy. Like, that really sucks you and 528 other people are barfing. I barfed once and it felt awful. Hope you feel better.
Some spokesthingy for the restaurant said,
"The Fat Duck, its insurers, experts and legal advisers only received a copy of this report a few hours before its publication and have only now had time to consider its contents. This meant that until all these parties had had the opportunity to review it and take expert advice it wasn't appropriate or indeed possible to comment in detail on its contents or respond fully to our customers.”
Of course, that didn’t stop Blumenthal from issuing his own delusional statement on Sept. 10, 2009, as soon as the Health Protection Agency report was released:
“We are glad that the report has finally been published and draws a conclusion to the closure of the Fat Duck and more importantly that the norovirus has been identified as the cause and not due to any lapse in our strict food preparation processes. We were affected by this virus during a national outbreak of what is an extremely common and highly contagious virus. The restaurant has been open as normal since March 12 and I would like to reassure our guests that they can continue to visit us with total confidence.”
All apologies aside, the report clearly stated that the norovirus outbreak – linked to the consumption of raw oysters -- continued for at least six weeks because of "ongoing transmission at the restaurant” through "continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both." The report also identified poor reporting and sick staff showing up and working as factors in making the outbreak far worse than it should have been.
Saying sorry is nice but never enough. The Fat Duck should be judged on its food safety actions.
Poisoned diners start lawsuit against 'unapologetic' celebrity chef Blumenthal; response called 'pathetic'
The UK Health Protection Agency report into an outbreak of norovirus that felled 529 diners at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant on Sept. 10, 2009, clearly identified poor reporting and employees working while sick as contributing factors to the outbreak.
Blumenthal decided to ignore this and take to the Interwebs with his own revisionist version of what went wrong earlier this year.
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This has upset some of the victims, who are now taking Blumenthal to court.
This morning, London’s Daily Mail online reports many are furious that Mr Blumenthal has refused to pay a penny in compensation, and at least two legal firms have initiated legal action.
Television presenter Jim Rosenthal, who was sickened, called Blumenthal’s response, “pathetic.”
“He has basically attempted to re-write the HPA report and its conclusions in his favour. It is pathetic and a complete PR disaster. There isn’t even a hint of apology.
“At first I was extremely sympathetic to Heston Blumenthal, but the way this has been mishandled beggars belief. I could not believe what I was reading in this email – it was like we had been sent different reports. I am taking them to court and a lot of other people are too. A simple apology might have ended all this a long time ago.”
Mr Blumenthal’s spokesman said:
“We are reviewing the report, which we only received on September 10, and won’t comment until we have completed that review.”
But they did comment, on Sept. 10. Clueless.
Someone's looking for some advertizing dollars: UK's Independent says norovirus at Fat Duck was 'a freakish occurrence;' check toilets for cleanliness
I first went to London in 1993. I was once again a graduate student, someone looked after the older two girls, and we took 6-week-old Braunwynn.
I loved to get a morning coffee – which cost about $895.58 pounds or something outrageous -- and reading the broadsheet newspaper, The Independent.
About that time I also realized, The Independent sorta sucked.
Rob Sharp writes in today’s Independent that Robin Hancock – not the musician, but the proprietor of Wright Brothers, an oyster wholesaler which supplies top restaurants – says the risks are overblown. In fact, he says, oysters should be enjoyed because they are full of vitamins, iron, calcium and are low in cholesterol.
"I would like to set the record straight," he says. "food poisoning from oysters is something from the past. We sell four to five tonnes of oysters a week – that's nearly 60,000 or 2.5 million a year – and we get maybe four or five cases of food poising in that time. What happened at the Fat Duck was somewhat of a freakish occurrence." Several thousand fishermen breathe a sigh of relief.
Fat Duck was 529. That’s more than four or five.
Hancock recommends the old adage of "checking to see if the toilets are clean" when venturing into a restaurant; general levels of hygiene can be a useful clue.
Not useful.
“We should not make too much of the viral thing; it is exceptionally rare. Again, I think the staff at the Fat Duck – where they are obsessed with a clinical, almost scientific preparation of food and are more than aware of these processes – were incredibly unlucky."
Or incredibly sloppy.
Fat Duck outbreak redux -- food safety infosheet version
This week's food safety infosheet, directed at foodservice staff is attached here. The infosheet focuses on an outbreak at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck restaurant which happened earlier this year. 
While norovirus illnesses were initially linked to patrons who ate shellfish, health authorities believe that ill staff members handling other food also contributed to the length and scope of the outbreak.
Michelin Stars don't mean anything when it comes to food safety culture.
Download the Fat Duck food safety infosheet here.
Health agency reports Fat Duck was slow to report food scare; celebrity chef says everything's fine; 529 barfing diners disagree
Celebrity chef, molecular gastrologest and Alton Brown-Mats Sundin love child, Heston Blumenthal may be delusional. Or illiterate. He certainly didn’t read the report from the U.K. Health Protection Agency which was released this morning.
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“Several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including: delayed response to the incident; staff working when they should have been off sick and using the wrong environmental cleaning products. Delays in notification of illness may have affected the ability of the investigation to identify the exact reason for the norovirus contamination.”
Blumenthal responded in an e-mailed release:
“We are glad that the report has finally been published and draws a conclusion to the closure of the Fat Duck and more importantly that the norovirus has been identified as the cause and not due to any lapse in our strict food preparation processes. We were affected by this virus during a national outbreak of what is an extremely common and highly contagious virus. The restaurant has been open as normal since March 12 and I would like to reassure our guests that they can continue to visit us with total confidence.”
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Sourcing food is the chef’s job; serving raw oysters is silly; delaying the reporting of illnesses is dumb; sick employees working and furthering the spread of the virus is stupid. No confidence at all.
Celebrity chef dumbass: Fat Duck felled by norovirus in raw oysters; 'weaknesses in procedures - delayed response to incident'
Chapman occasionally comes up with a good line. Usually, I do all the work on a piece (at least in my mind), and he’ll put in one sentence, but it will be the one that is remembered.
Why didn’t I think of that?
Chapman described celebrity chef and molecular gastrologest Heston Blumenthal (below, right) as the love child of Alton Brown and longtime Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player Mats Sundin (right).
Why didn’t I think of that.
Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant – which is consistently rated as the best in the U.K. – was the source of over 500 illnesses in early 2009. At the time, Blumenthal said, “tests for viral infections and food poisoning have proved negative and there is speculation that the winter outbreak of norovirus could be the real reason why they became sick.”
Way to blame the consumer, those paying hundreds of pounds for the privilege of barfing.
The U.K. Health Protection Agency published a report on the outbreak today that concluded:
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* There was a large outbreak of food poisoning among diners at the Fat Duck Restaurant in January and February 2009, with more than 500 reporting illness - over 15% of those dining there during this period
* The organism responsible was norovirus which was probably introduced via shellfish (more diners who ate shellfish dishes reported illness). Oysters were served raw; razor clams may not have been appropriately handled or cooked; tracing of shellfish to source showed evidence of contamination and there have been reports of illness in other establishments associated with oysters from the same source
* The outbreak continued for at least six weeks (between January 6 and February 22) because of ongoing transmission at the restaurant - which may have occurred through continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both
* Several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including: delayed response to the incident; staff working when they should have been off sick and using the wrong environmental cleaning products
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* Delays in notification of illness may have affected the ability of the investigation to identify the exact reason for the norovirus contamination
It’s the chef’s responsibility to source food from safe sources. And if the chef thinks raw shellfish is a smart thing to serve, and to have sick workers working, then, customers get what they pay for.
Make customers barf, score a perfect rating
Food safety culture is miniscule compared to food porn culture.
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How is it that Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant was rated as a perfect 10 in the new edition of the Good Food Guide 2010, despite being closed for a norovirus outbreak?
Making customers barf doesn’t seem to count in the scoring system.
Good Food Guide editor and food porn aficionado Elizabeth Carter, said
"It is the most extraordinary restaurant in Britain. … It’s a destination restaurant, a place you save up to go to, and you will remember it forever."
Especially the barfing.
Fat Duck staff members worked while ill
UK celeb chef Heston Blumenthal's restaurant, The Fat Duck, has now been linked to over 400 illnesses. Moleculargastrologest Blumenthal, who looks like the love child of Alton Brown and Mats Sundin, reportedly had up to 16 food handlers working with norovirus symptoms at the restaurant. Not a great idea.
The reality of the food industry is that a sick day is a day without pay and can lead to less hours. This continues to be a problem, especially with norovirus as ill food handlers are often linked to large-scale outbreaks.
Below is a food safety infosheet dedicated to the Fat Duck outrbreak. You can download the food safety infosheet here.
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Across the Sea, Fat Duck flails
The Fat Duck fiasco reached public ears on Feb. 24, 2009, the day celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal decided that because of his “moral feeling” about 40 sick customers, he best close shop, even though he was losing a lot of money and maybe it wasn’t necessary.
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By March 3, 2009, chef Heston declared tests ruled out food poisoning after up to 40 customers reported feeling unwell and that,
“It has been awful. We have done our own food testing for the last four years. Everything is tested from the food coming out of the ground, from the farm into the kitchen and to the customer.
"When we started getting telephone calls we took it very seriously. … We've had staff tested, some customers tested and so far it is categorically not food poisoning. We are now looking at the possibility of an airborne virus. This could have come from a customer, a staff member not showing symptoms or from outside the restaurant. A customer called me to say they came in with a table of four, three of them got ill, but then their children got ill so they are convinced it is a virus."
At the time I wrote that a lack of positive test results proves nothing. Chapman and I e-mailed each other about the pitfalls of armchair epidemiology. Oh, and I’d be interested to know the nature of those tests for everything. Testing is one of those words that is supposed to make folks sound like they are on top of things – Maple Leaf does thousands of tests – but it’s sorta meaningless in the absence of a protocol.
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Today the Fat Duck remains closed. The number of sick is now estimated at 400. The Independent reported yesterday that more than 1,000 people face medical checks after health officials widened their investigation into the Fat Duck illness. And the story has gone international.
The New York Times reports this morning that Britain’s Health Protection Agency is testing the food, testing the people who had become ill and conducting a “risk assessment of all food storage, preparation and cooking processes.” It is testing for bacteria, viruses, patterns in the sick people’s symptoms and in the food they ate and, for good measure, testing other diners, whether or not they got sick.
“… Mr. Blumenthal is perhaps best known for items like snail porridge and “nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream” (served with tea jelly).
His Sound of the Sea dish includes seafood, foam and what some reviewers have called “edible sand.” It is served alongside a conch shell with an iPod in it, so diners can listen to wave and seagull sounds as they eat.
And the individual stories are emerging. Boxing promoter Frank Warren was one of 400 diners who fell ill after dining at the Fat Duck, and said he was "very disappointed" with his treatment after becoming sick following his visit.
"Everything was fabulous about the evening - the food, the setting, the service, it was unbelievably good but unfortunately, afterwards, all of us were ill. … Since then we have not heard anything from the restaurant at all. I am very disappointed and I know that the people I went with are very disappointed with the feedback."
As I’ve already written, check out the staff. And handwashing facilities. And suppliers. And places chefs rarely think to go when it comes to basic microbiology, from farm-to-fork.
And what a fab excuse for a Weezer video, Across the Sea.
Fat Duck was correct to close after diners sickened
The Fat Duck is apparently a fancy restaurant in Berkshire, UK, run by TV chef Heston Blumenthal; it was voted Best Restaurant in the World by fellow chefs in 2005, or something.
The Independent reports that Blumenthal (right) spent a sleepless night before deciding to close the restaurant last Tuesday in the face of a steady stream – between 30 and 40 – of complaints from customers who suffered vomiting, diarrhoea and flu-like symptoms.
"I made the decision to be transparent about it. Who knows if it was the right or wrong decision to make. But my gut reaction, the moral feeling about it all, was that's what we had to do. It was an incredibly emotional decision."
But tests for viral infections and food poisoning have proved negative and there is speculation that the winter outbreak of norovirus could be the real reason why they became sick.
Yeah, check out the staff. And handwashing facilities. And suppliers. And places chefs rarely think to go when it comes to basic microbiology, from farm-to-fork.
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