Colts win in stunner; stadium food service company denies media access to witness food safety improvements
Maybe it was the stadium food that somehow lifted the Indianapolis Colts to a stunning come-from-behind 35-34 victory over the New England Patriots in another chapter of the U.S. football rivalry of 
the decade, Peyton Manning (right) versus Tom Brady (below, left).
After being hammered by local health types, the folks who run the food concessions at Lucas Oil Stadium swooped into town and promised to set things straight. WISH went out to ask some tailgaters to see how confident were about buying food inside the stadium.
Tailgater Glen Vigar reacted to the news,"(It's) a little scary. I mean it's a brand new building. I wouldn't expect it."
Vigar said that he wouldn't eat the food there anymore.
Centerplate said it planned to have 15 of its own food safety inspectors inside the stadium Sunday to make sure conditions are clean.
24-Hour News 8 had asked to be inside the stadium to see how that was going, but a Centerplate spokesperson denied that request.
Rats, mice, roaches, the need for more inspectors
Astonishing and amazing, like the recent Pet Shop Boys concert I attended, what one can find during a restaurant inspection.
KITV writes
In mid-August, a customer complained about finding a roach in a hamburger from a Honolulu fast-food restaurant. Two days later, an inspector found dead roaches in a plastic paper sheet cover at the same restaurant.
The state sends inspectors on unannounced inspections of restaurants. KITV followed along as inspector Raena Nishimura checked the conditions at Downtown Coffee, a coffee bar off Fort Street Mall.
"Just looking in the cupboards for any signs of droppings of rodents, roach droppings," Nishimura said.
There were none of those at Downtown Coffee, but an inspector found a live rat under the sink at a Kalihi noodle shop recently.
At another downtown restaurant, an inspector found mold in a soda dispenser, just a few days after a customer complained of finding mold in some lemonade.
The only way to find violations and get dirty restaurants to clean up their act is to inspect them on a regular basis.
"Our supervisor would like to have our establishments inspected twice a year, but that's impossible," Nishimura said.
It is impossible because budget cuts have left a small number of inspectors to handle thousands of restaurants.
I couldn’t agree more, public health inspections are a culmination of hard work integrating a myriad of different scientific disciplines. As a result, they take time and more resources are needed if we are to take food safety seriously.
Another A for Curb Your Enthusiasm
Rather than wait a week, Amy and I watched Sunday’s Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. And there it was – another Los Angeles restaurant inspection disclosure A on the front of a pizza shop. I’m starting to think the L.A. County health department is paying for A placements in the scripts.
An A for the ice cream shop on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Finally getting around to watching last week’s Curb Your Enthusiasm before delving into this week’s, and once again, the Los Angeles restaurant inspection disclosure program is the money shot of the show.
In addition to the A, the 31 Ice Cream has some sort of food safety seal I haven’t seen before.
Restaurant inspections:announced or unannounced...
Restaurant inspections are generally carried out unannounced by a health inspector. In this way one can obtain a snap shot of what is actually going on at that time. Some of the expressions on employees’ faces when I arrive and announce myself are priceless, makes me feel so wanted at times. Now I know how Chuck Norris feels when he enters an establishment. So, I decided to perform a restaurant inspection that was scheduled to eliminate the wonderful element of surprise. When a health inspector schedules an inspection, it is assumed that managers’, food operators’, supervisors and anyone else involved with that facility are going to take extra measures to ensure that things are cleaned up and everything is in check. I sometimes favor scheduled inspections because if I go in and find something wrong, for instance, mixing soap with chlorine sanitizer, then it becomes more apparent that staff are unaware or misinformed on this issue. More importantly, as the health inspector develops a relationship with the chef and spends time explaining why certain practices are right or wrong, both the establishment and the customer benefits. .jpg)
Chinese restaurant to close for good after Salmonella outbreak, failed repeat inspection
Ruby Chinese Restaurant, the beleaguered eatery at the source of a Salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 22 people and possibly contributed to the death of another, will close for good.
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The Toronto Star reports that word is spreading in north Scarborough's Chinese community that the immensely popular restaurant will not reopen after a recent salmonella outbreak.
At an emergency meeting on Sunday, according to a source, the restaurant's three owners are said to have decided to file for bankruptcy on Monday, and have hired an accountant to prepare for auctioning off furniture and equipment.
The 17-year-old restaurant was closed by Toronto Public Health in early October. It failed another inspection two days later, with health officials citing cockroaches and a very dirty floor.
The owners were told by a pest control firm that ending the cockroach problem would require treating the entire single-storey strip mall at 1571 Sandhurst Circle, near Finch Ave. E. and McCowan Rd. As well, customers were cancelling the multi-course banquets that made up the bulk of its business.
Cook your own food at Glasgow restaurant an invitation to health problems?
The Glaswegian reports that diners are being invited to make their own dishes at a new Glasgow restaurant.
Cookie will be the first restaurant in Scotland to invite customers into the kitchen to prepare and cook the food.
They will have access to quality ingredients and be guided by a trained chef.
The eaterie is the brainchild of Scots-Italian architect Domenico Del Priore.
He hopes the concept of "horizontal cooking" will break down barriers between chef and diner.
Inspired by open family restaurants in Italy, Domenico predicts "self cooking" will be the next big thing.
How will health inspectors view the latest trend? Especially with cross-contamination issues.
He said, she said: USA Today on E. coli in ground beef
Today’s USA Today offered up its point-counter-point editorial space this morning to the persistent problem of dangerous E. coli in ground beef.
From the newspaper:
Too many Americans get sick and too many die from eating that most all-American of foods, the hamburger. …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has seemed confused as to whether its job is to protect consumers or producers, urges testing by hamburger makers and could require it. But it has not done so, apparently because of industry resistance. It should.
A second problem is that it's physically impossible and economically unrealistic to test every bit of meat. … Though numerous studies have shown that irradiation is safe and effective, public suspicion has helped prevent its spread. USDA, which has approved irradiation, needs to counter the myths and campaign for its wider use.
Because producers and the USDA admit that they can't guarantee germ-free meat, they urge consumers to handle ground beef carefully and cook it to 160 degrees, which kills most bacteria. That should be a last line of defense, not a primary one. You shouldn't be taking your life in your hands if the bun holds an undercooked burger.
From the government, U.S. secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack:
The following are just a few key steps USDA has taken recently:
— Launched an initiative to cut down E. coli contamination, including stepped up meat facility inspections to involve greater use of sampling to monitor the productsgoing into ground beef.
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— Appointed a chief medical officer within USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service to coordinate human health issues within USDA and build bridges with the public health community and senior leaders throughout the federal, state and local sectors to establish a consistent approach and heighten food safety awareness.
— Issued consolidated, more effective field instructions on how to inspect for E. coli O157:H7 contamination.
— Started testing additional components of ground beef, including bench trim, and issued new instructions to our employees asking that they verify that plants follow sanitary practices in processing beef carcasses.
Protecting public health is the sole mission of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, and we will not rest until we have eliminated food-borne illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths.
If only foodborne illness was as cute as a Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins movie.
Thank you for the Salmonella sir, can I have some more? Customers flock to shuttered restaurant
A Toronto restaurant that made 37 of its customers barf and remains closed after two failed health inspections, is still packing them in – on the front lawn.
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John He and Peter Wong waited on the manicured lawn of Ruby Chinese Restaurant Saturday afternoon for a friend to join them for lunch. The men knew about the salmonella, but thought the restaurant would be open.
"Many customers are crying that it's closed down. "I'm healthy," adding he dines at Ruby about three times a week.
Probably not a consolation to the dead person believed to be linked to the outbreak.
The Toronto Star also reported this morning that children pulled on locked doors and the curious pressed their faces against the glass Saturday afternoon. The lights were off inside and staff were cleaning. None were available for comment.
Jeeping Huang did not know about the salmonella outbreak or failed inspections. She was surprised, not worried, and will eat at the restaurant again.
"Every restaurant works this way. They can change and make improvements," she said.
Every restaurant does not work this way, and shouldn't.
Toronto restaurant at center of Salmonella outbreak fails reinspection - still closed
Dumb things to say when 37 people are sick and 1 dead, from the same restaurant: "I eat here regularly and I have never gotten sick. Everyone in the community eats there. It has a very good reputation."
Apparently the Globe and Mail newspaper thinks so too, and published an awesome online review of Ruby, the Chinese restaurant at the center of a Salmonella outbreak. Or it was available, according to a food writer at the rival National Post newspaper, until the restaurant was closed: “review now deleted.”
Howard Shapiro, Toronto's associate medical officer of health, said,
Despite having almost two days to clean the restaurant, the restaurant failed to "meet the requirements needed to be met to re-open.” The restaurant will remain closed until the next inspection takes place sometime this weekend.
The restaurant was shut down on Wednesday, after two health inspectors found that foods were not protected from contamination, raw meat wasn't kept at the correct temperature, and utensils and cooking surfaces were inadequately cleaned. There was also a cockroach infestation and Shapiro said the floor was "dirtier than we would find acceptable."
The B at Peppone restaurant doesn't stand for Britney
Being an avid fan of stalker-esque gossip sites, I was interested to see the popular celebrity eatery Peppone appear in my Google Alerts this morning. The likes of Britney Spears and Mark Wahlberg have dined at the Brentwood, California restaurant, and in the past the A grade at the restaurant didn’t just invite A-list celebrities.
A recent inspection, however, revealed a drop from A to B, reports Brentwood Blogged. Included in the inspection findings was evidence of a major cockroach infestation.
Will the drop from A to B cause a drop in patronage as well?
First lady dined at D.C. restaurant that got lousy inspection
With all the Obama food groupies, someone should have probably figured out before now that the first lady, first vice-lady and D.C.’s mayor and spouse ate at a Washington restaurant earlier this year that sucked at food safety.
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But kudos to the Washington Post for highlighting the failures in basic sanitation at a local eatery – the same failures other mere mortals are subjected to on a daily basis.
Toronto, Los Angeles, Sydney, London, Copenhagen: World-class cities that have all come to embrace some form of restaurant inspection disclosure for the consuming public. Maybe Washington, D.C. will one day join the rank of truly world-class cities, and provide basic information to taxpaying citizens.
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Flip flops or foodborne illness: pick your poison
Flip flops are gross microbiological factories loaded with E. coli, Staph aureus and fecal matter that will soon be returning to university campuses around the U.S.
Duh.
At least CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton had the sense to say,
"Have there been people who have gotten some pretty bad skin infections because they've been wearing flip flops or walked barefoot? Sure.”
Ashton said in her opinion, food poisoning, which can contain bacteria, is a more significant health risk than germy flip flops.
Like the latest restaurant inspections from Dade County, home of Miami, the other coast in Florida.
• The Oasis Restaurant (19 Harbor Drive, Key Biscayne) - Critical. Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous food due to temperature abuse.
• Georges (3145 Commodore Plaza, Miami) - Critical. Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous food due to temperature abuse.
• Good Way Cafeteria (10932 NW 7 Ave) - Critical. Observed rodent activity as evidenced by rodent droppings found. 30 plus fresh droppings under table in kitchen.
• Casa Panza (1620 SW 8 St, Miami) - Critical. Observed rodent activity as evidenced by rodent droppings found. oberved about 30 + shiny and moist dropping on floor behind coffee worktable.and about 25+ on floor behind stove in kitchen , and about 10+ in floor in bar area back dining room. fresh and moist.
• San Miguel Market Cafeteria (2600 NW 21st Ave) - Critical. Violation: 35A-05-1 Observed roach activity as evidenced by 32 plus live roaches found in kitchen by the cookline. 3 live roaches behind reachin freezer next to steam table, 2 live roaches inside ice bin, 2 live roaches inside to go cup box by bathroom.
Restaurant inspection changes in Philadelphia
Restaurant inspectors in Philadelphia have abandoned the "floors, walls, ceilings" focus and instead are phasing in a more scientific, "risk-based" approach that emphasizes food workers' knowledge and behavior - do they know how contamination is spread and how to prevent it? - and calls for more frequent inspections of eateries that pose greater risks.
Don Sapatkin of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes this morning that Philadelphia is playing catchup in adopting changes that most counties around here have already made, in some cases many years ago. Yet the city's new approach is expected to mean more inspections of the 12,621 establishments that sell or serve food - four times a year at institutional kitchens, for example - than most places.
Still, this region is hardly progressive compared to places like Toronto, which posts red, yellow or green signs in restaurants, or Los Angeles (A-B-Cs), or Denmark (smiley faces). No county in the Philadelphia region requires restaurants to post full inspection reports on location.
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It's not clear that food is any safer when there is greater transparency or even more frequent inspections, "but it does get people to think about food safety," said Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University who operates barfblog.
Don Schaffner, a professor of food microbiology at Rutgers University, said inspections traditionally have focused as much on appearance as on cooking temperatures. And they often made little distinction between sushi bars that serve raw fish and drug stores that sell prepackaged food.
"What we've learned over time is, not everything is equal.”
Ben Chapman, a food-safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University and a contributor to barfblog said prevention is really about "the culture of the restaurant”
Meaning, says Powell,
"If two workers are from the same restaurant (and go to the bathroom) and (only) one washes his hands, I want one to say to the other: 'Dude, wash your hands.' "
'Multiple little failures add up' and cause outbreaks
This is a food safety story with no dead bodies, no sick people, and a company responding appropriately to questions raised by inspectors.
Mike Hughlett writes in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune today that,
When food-safety inspectors called on Panera Bread Co.'s Chicago dough plant earlier this year, they found a host of manufacturing deficiencies.
For instance, a worker was spotted welding near a batch of bread dough -- a contamination risk -- while some dough was observed in dirty containers.
Panera's records also indicated that in just over a year, the Chicago plant, which makes bread dough for 124 outlets in four states, fielded 10 complaints from consumers who had found foreign objects, mostly metal, in their food, including a washer discovered in a whole-grain bagel. …
The lesson is: Deviations from good manufacturing practices, which are at issue at Panera's plant, often are at the heart of food-safety fiascoes. Companies either learn from the errors, as Panera said it did, or the risk increases that the next incident will be more serious.
Doug Powell, a food safety expert at Kansas State University, said,
"It's multiple little failures that add up; these are warning signs.”
Martin Cole, who heads the Illinois Institute of Technology's National Center for Food Safety and Technology agreed, adding,
such failures are "fairly common, I'm afraid."
Beware of pizza in Halmsted, Sweden
The pizza in Halmstad, Sweden apparently sucks.
Food safety inspections allegedly found that almost 90 per cent of establishments that serve pizza failed to meet the minimum levels of hygiene.
The Hallands-Posten reported that just nine of the 70 restaurants in town that serve pizza made the grade. Food safety inspectors were genuinely shocked when they tallied the results of their unannounced checks on restaurants in the coastal town of Halmstad this spring. With the vast majority of the town’s restaurants miserably failing basic hygiene, the inspectors were left wondering what went wrong.
Food safety inspector Ulrika Cederberg told the Hallands-Posten,
“We’re quite shocked. We actually didn’t think it would be this bad. There were nineteen places that didn’t have access to a functioning washbasin with soap and paper towels.”
Among the most appalling findings was one restaurant that was infested with a species of beetle that lives off dried fish, meat and cheese. Inspectors shut the place down immediately.
Another restaurant was given a temporary reprieve when the staff stayed up all night to try and clean up the many failures given out by inspectors. Storing food in toilets and no washbasins were major failings at that restaurant.
Food service food safety failures made public in Sydney; public benefits
The Sydney Morning Herald this morning – this being Sunday morning in Australia – has a huge feature on the effects of the New South Wales state Food Authority taking a more, uh, vigilant approach to restaurant inspections.
The newspaper concludes that 40 per cent of all restaurants, takeaways and other food businesses in NSW were caught breaching one or more of the critical food handling practices when first visited by an inspector.
That may not be an entirely fair representation. Lots of places have at least one critical violation, and in the U.S., how a critical violation is defined can differ from state-to-state, and even county-to-county. There needs to be some sort of control or comparative group to determine whether that number is high or not.
But it sure sounds gross.
Inspection rates are woefully inadequate in some local councils, and there is often a lack of follow-up.
Anna Cenfi, part-owner of the Belli Bar, got it right when she said inspections conducted in the past few months were more thorough than in previous years, but that she had received three letters warning that a food safety inspection was imminent.
"I think that warning people that they are coming to inspect is ridiculous. They should just spot check everyone, even if it's just once a year. I'm not worried for myself but I know a lot of dodgy places out there."
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Journalist Mathew Moore does clearly state that whatever the limitations, “making this information public we can now expect improvements in standards that transparency and public scrutiny of government information can bring. The Food Authority deserves praise for releasing this information and giving the public far more data than it can get in any other state. It's an important addition to the name and shame list … With its website and release of the statewide data, NSW has gone further than any other state.
“Yet it still lags behind many cities in Britain and the US, where the results of every restaurant inspection are posted online. New York City even allows consumers to search restaurants according to their number of violation points.
“Governments there have learnt what the NSW Government is now only beginning to realise; there are major public health benefits in shining a public light into the kitchens of every food business that serves the public.”
Australian judge: 'If you cannot offer food that is safe for consumption, you ought not to '
A North Melbourne bakery riddled with cockroaches and mouse droppings that failed to comply with an order to clean the shop has been fined $7,000.
After an inspection in April last year that found a live mouse, cockroaches, moths, mouse droppings and dirty shelving and work benches, Queensberry Hot Bread's owner Dino Primitivo did not comply with an order to clean the shop or deter pests, the Melbourne Magistrates Court heard yesterday.
Photographs tendered to the court showed a live mouse under shelves, clothing hung up to dry in front of an oven, cracked, broken and dirty work tools, benches and surfaces, and mouse droppings on the floor.
Magistrate Sue Wakeling told Primitivo,
"If you cannot offer food that is safe for consumption, you ought not to."
Washington's Breadline sandwich shop has food safety issues
barfblog.com fan Jessica said I should do something on famed Washington, D.C. sandwich shop, Breadline.
I checked it out, and yeah, a number of D.C. outlets reported on the establishment’s closing, but the detailed inspection reports in the Washington City Paper were the best.
There’s a bunch of somewhat mundane inspection issues but the interesting food safety reading is near the end. Among the more disgusting infractions:
• a “display deli case maintaining a temperature of 82° F;”
• a dirty meat slicer (”old food particles present”) and a dirty potato chopper (ditto) as well as “debris throughout prep tables and prep table shelving;”
• improper cooling of chicken, chick pea spread, tuna salad, curry chicken salad, sliced turkey, ground beef, and cole slaw, all above the required 41° Fahrenheit threshold; and,
* a bread rack or other equipment blocked access to hand sinks. “Handsinks,” must be accessible at all times for proper handwashing.”
Campbell's boss smoking ... soup? Calls for Canadian-style food safety regs
Campbell Soup boss Doug Conant told the Canadian Embassy in Washington last night that the U.S. should abandon its two-regulator format for food and adopt a one-agency model like Canada’s, which would be more effective than product-label laws, adding,
“If the government of Canada can monitor the safety of its food products with one single food-inspection agency, why can’t the United States?”
There are probably other reasons Conant would like to clone the Canadians. If there’s ever an outbreak of foodborne disease, the public will hear about it last from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In last year’s listeria shitfest in which 22 died, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Ontario, Dr. David Williams, complained that CFIA waited nearly a month to inform health officials that contaminated ready-to-eat meats were being distributed to grocery stories -- a dangerous delay in issuing a product recall.
But Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president and Chief Veterinary Officer of Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that CFIA acted promptly once they were informed of a food source associated with two illnesses in a nursing home. Scientific evidence of contaminated meat products was confirmed on the evening of Aug. 16, 2008 and the CFIA issued a public advisory and recall eight hours later in the early morning hours of Aug. 17, 2008.
Apparently, only positive product tests count as real science at CFIA. Epidemiology, dead bodies, these are mere distractions. Is that really what the Campbell’s dude is endorsing?
Street meat (and other roadside dishes) on the rise
Last week, the Wall Street Journal profiled street food vendors throughout the U.S. highlighting the popularity of mobile/temporary/cart foods. It appears that the segment of foodservice is increasing in popularity as consumers want more than just hot dogs and sausages. Many of the operators profiled by WSJ have online ordering, text message support and tweet (on twitter) to better connect with customers and provide speed and convenience.
With more complex foods (other than just reheating cooked meats) comes more complicated (and potentially risky) preparation and handling steps. Multiple raw ingredients need to be kept at the right temperature, operators have to avoid cross-contamination and, keep bacteria and viruses off of their hands. All within the confines of a cart or trailer.
Operators must know (and care) about the risks associated with the products they sell. Health inspectors are part of the solution, but a good street vendor manages the risks before the inspector points them out.
The WSJ also reported back in April that the strictly street meat industry is booming as well-- hot dog cart sales for some manufactures have doubled..jpg)
Sales of carts, which start at about $2,000 new, have heated up in the past year. "Every model is...taking off," says Joel Goetz, owner of American Dream Hot Dog Carts Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since January, he has sold about 25 carts a week, 15 more than usual.
"Business is really off the charts," says Dan Jackson, a division manager at Nation's Leasing Services in Newbury Park, Calif. Leases for hot-dog carts account for about three-quarters of sales, and revenue is triple what it was this time a year ago, he says.
Some of the problems that can arise with mobile vendors were exemplified by the good folks at Seattle & King Co. Health. The Seattle Times reports that the health authorities closed a bistro-style mobile restaurant (which was profiled in the WSJ piece), operated out of an Airstream trailer by Skillet Street Food, after finding several health code violations.
The department found several issues — including no water in the hand-washing area, no cold storage for food and no arrangements for restrooms — and shut it down.
The trailer also reportedly didn't have a license to operate (while a sister trailer, which remained open, did).
In a follow-up article, chef-owner Josh Henderson tried to explain the situation:
"We have one trailer not fully approved," explained Henderson as he readied for tonight's game. "The original trailer people see every day was having some mechanical issues, so we were forced to bring out the one that's not approved."
Forced?
"We signed a contract with the Mariners for the season, saying we'll be out in that lot." It was a choice between not operating and potentially having a breach of contract, he said, or not having a permit for the night and hoping they could get away with it. "We made a bad choice."
Henderson went on to say:
"We're a young business. We've invested money. We're struggling to pay bills. We don't have deep pockets and large investors. When it comes down to paying payroll and operating a business, sometimes these risks are outweighed by other stuff. That's the reality."
Yeah, not so sure that potentially making a bunch of people sick so you can honor the terms of your contract the best risk to take. If something goes wrong you're probably out of business (and not fulfilling that contract with the Mariners).
Stop tweeting, get some water and wash your hands.
Letter grades for Abu Dhabi restaurants?
If the UAE takes letter grades for restaurant inspection disclosure, will they also take American pop culture crap like The Hills (right).
The National reports that more than half of all restaurants monitored by Sharjah Municipality have failed basic food hygiene inspections on such grounds as out-of-date food and mouldy kitchens.
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Over the past 12 months, inspectors checked 1,588 restaurants and cafeterias, of which only 223 met the minimum requirements, according to Jassim Mohammed al Ali, head of the municipality’s internal inspection department.
Of the remaining establishments, 891 were issued with warnings and 474 were closed temporarily until they improved.
Restaurants and grocery shops in the capital will face similar inspections over the coming weeks.
The news comes a week after a four-year-old girl died from food poisoning in Sharjah. Marwa Faisal died in Al Qassimi Hospital early last Sunday, just 55 minutes after she, her parents and her brother had been admitted with symptoms that included violent vomiting. …
The Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority has warned grocery shop operators and restaurant managers in the emirate a concerted food inspection campaign is on the way in the lead-up to the summer.
Last month in Al Ain, spot checks by ADFCA inspectors and city police found 143 lorries hauling produce to markets and restaurants without proper permits. …
The ADFCA is also considering implementing a restaurants grading system similar to that implemented in 2006 for fish markets and butcher shops.
Under the proposed programme, all the emirate’s food outlets would be required clearly to display a certificate disclosing health inspection results –“A” for exceptional health and safety practices, “B” for very good, or a passing “C” grade.
Restaurants challenge 'name and shame' in Sydney
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a Sydney restaurant is considering legal action against the NSW Food Authority over its controversial name-and-shame website.
Satasia opened in Balmain 28 years ago and has become one of the most popular restaurants in Sydney's inner west.
The owner, Andrew Lum, says that reputation is in tatters after his eatery was fined by the Food Authority, then included on its name-and-shame list alongside rat- and cockroach-infested restaurants.
The database was launched in July to try to improve hygiene standards.
But Mr Lum and other restaurateurs argue its format is unfair.
Several businesses, including Satasia, have consulted lawyers about suing the State Government.
But the Food Authority appears to be immune from legal action, including defamation, under section 133G of the 2003 Food Act, which states: "No liability is incurred by the state, the minister or the Food Authority, for publishing in good faith any information contained on a register."
A University of Sydney senior law lecturer, David Rolph, said,
"The Food Authority clearly takes the view that when you balance it out between the rights of the trader and the right of the public not to consume food prepared in unsafe places, public interest has to prevail."
Lavender Blue Cafe, at McMahons Point, joined the list in November after receiving a fine for a broken probe thermometer. The manager, Andrew Menczel, said: "The list is a good idea in principle but to lump everyone together is wrong. There should be clearer categories for different offences.”
Food fight: Massachusetts school cafeteria inspections suck
Sara Brown, Husna Haq, and Hannah McBride, journalism students at Boston University, got their feature on school cafeteria food safety inspections published in the Boston Globe this morning. They’d been working on it for much of last semester, and I spent some time on the phone with Sara and provided some background. Good for them; glad the Globe is still around to publish such features. Highlights below.
At an elementary school in Billerica, the sewage smell was so strong it forced a nauseated health inspector to leave after 15 minutes. During a five-week period in Framingham, 17 mice were caught in an elementary school's kitchen storage area. And in a Foxborough middle school, a complaint of hair in the food prompted an inquiry by a local health inspector.
School cafeteria inspections in communities throughout Greater Boston last year found problems ranging from expired milk and rotting meat to disposable utensils and a meat slicer stored in employee bathrooms.
But, in many ways, that was the good news.
Those cafeterias were inspected, their problems identified for correction. Cafeterias in 7 percent of private and public elementary and secondary schools across Massachusetts were never inspected at all in the 2007-2008 school year, according to state records. And 38 percent were inspected just once, though federal law requires two health inspections annually.
The Massachusetts data gathered from school districts tell only part of the story.
A closer look at more than 1,000 schools in 157 communities in Greater Boston reveals a slipshod system of local enforcement with virtually no state or federal oversight. …
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In Massachusetts, school cafeteria inspections fall under the jurisdiction of local boards of health, typically small groups that are either elected or appointed, depending on the community. There are no minimum education or experience requirements to be a health inspector; candidates need only pass a state-approved performance test and a written exam, which can be taken online through the Food and Drug Administration. The state also sets no minimum qualifications for directors of local boards of health.
"The guy who inspects your car has more training" than some health inspectors, said Michael Moore, food safety coordinator at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. …
In August, Lynn health inspector Frank McNulty was called to Lynn English High School to investigate a foul odor. When he opened the cafeteria freezer, a puff of steam reeking of rotting meat gushed out. "I nearly passed out," McNulty said. "I've never dealt with something like that before."
The freezer had shut down, but the condenser was still operating, drawing in hot summer air and cooking hundreds of pounds of meat for weeks. McNulty and food service employees called dozens of cleaning services, but none would take the job. Finally, he contacted a company that cleans up crime scenes.
"They must do dead bodies," he said, "so I figured they'd do this."
Acheson writes: FDA plans bold safety effort for food safety
David Acheson M.D., associate commissioner for foods with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Md., (right, pretty much exactly as shown) took to the letters page of The Contra Costa Times this morning to say,
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“… we recognize that recent problems in food safety represent a clear need for change and a modernization in approach.
That's why we're working more closely with state and local officials to quickly respond to food-borne dangers, such as the recent problems with contaminated pistachios.
The FDA is increasing the number of audits of state inspection programs. Looking forward, the agency is developing a bold new approach that will support states as full partners, not as contractors.
President Barack Obama's budget request for this year includes historic increases for food safety. As a lead participant of the President's Food Safety Working Group, the FDA's focus is on the development of a new national system focused on prevention.”
Guelph is no Oxford - but the food hygiene sucks at both
When I began university, staying in an on-campus residence, the occupants had to sign up to a meal plan. That was 1981, and you could buy five pitchers of beer on a $20 meal card in the local dining hall at the University of Guelph.
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The food was gross, but we always ate in our rooms, saving the meal cards for beer.
And maybe we were on to something. Because 18 years later, the uppity Oxford University has been outted as having horrible food prep standards.
At New College a mouse was found eating food from a wheelie bin and dirty work tops were identified.
Rats were discovered scurrying around the rear yard outside kitchens at Mansfield and Pembroke Colleges.
Council workers were appalled by the dilapidated state of kitchens at many of the old buildings and said they were badly in need of a re-fit.
At Worcester College part of the ceiling collapsed in the area where plates are washed but staff continued to carry on working around it.
And in the typical leadership fashion of most higher institutes of learning,
A spokesman for Oxford University said it was a matter for individual colleges and they would not be commenting.
Dirty dining in Manhattan (Kansas)
Katie Filion and Brandon Speight, students in my food safety reporting class, write,
There is nothing appetizing about dead rodents, crusty slicers or sewage in a restaurant kitchen, but these are problems the Riley County Department of Health and Environment, in Manhattan, Kansas, has encountered during recent restaurant inspections. So how does a consumer, unable to witness what goes on behind the kitchen door, make an informed dining decision?
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Perhaps unknown to some, restaurant inspection information is publicly available online in Kansas. After reviewing this data a few eateries appear to be dirtier than others, but what constitutes a bad inspection?
Kathy Brower, an inspector for Riley County, answered some questions about the inspection process, and didn’t skip the dirty details.
Brower explained that foodservice establishments in Kansas are required to be inspected at least once a year. If a consumer contacts the health department with a complaint the establishment must be inspected within 24 hours. On the department website, consumers can see when an establishment has been inspected, and whether it was a routine inspection, customer complaint, or follow-up to address previous issues.
Brower additionally explained that during the inspection process the health inspector is looking for several things, some of which are categorized as non-critical violations and others as critical violations, and are based on likelihood to cause illness.
“Examples of non-critical violations are things like mildew issues, thawing messes or dust,” said Brower. “Critical violations are more based on health risk, like hot or cold holding temperatures, ensuring clean food contact surfaces, pest control, and proper food handling.“
Critical violations -- the problems that have a higher risk of making someone sick-- are enforced on a three-strike rule.
“[An establishment] is given a violation, and has two chances to correct this violation before they are assigned a fine. Fines range in severity, and are based on the type of violation. They can be between $100-500 per violation,” explained Brower.
What’s the grossest thing Brower’s ever seen during an inspection?
“Raw sewage backed-up in a kitchen, a wall-mounted veggie slicer that hadn’t been cleaned in over a year, and mice. There are so many different things it’s hard to say…There’ve been several instances of mold and mildew in bad places.”
So which restaurants in Manhattan are the dirtiest? Brower wouldn’t say, but after reviewing the inspection results online, a few appear to have more problems than others. To be considered a dirty diner an establishment had to have several violations, with a high number of critical violations, repeat violations or customer complaints being a red flag.
With inspection results for over 250 foodservice establishments in Riley County listed on the department website, it is difficult to pinpoint only three that fared the worst. The website includes results for all foodservice operations, including schools and hotels, not considered in the search for Manhattan’s dirtiest diner.
In the end, the three restaurants in Manhattan that appear dirtiest are: Grizzly’s Grill, Bobby T’s and Hunam Express.
When asked if inspection is a good thing, Anthony Parker, owner of Grizzly’s Grill, who landed on the list because of last year’s inspection with a whopping 11 critical violations and repeat pest problems, said, “Yes and no. Every time there’s a new health inspector things change. I could be doing something one way for 5 years, and a new inspector decides they don’t like that. Then I get written up.”
Parker explained he feels the inspection process may not be fully understood by consumers.
“The biggest thing is when people read about violations and they aren’t educated about what [a violation] means they can sound worse than what they are. Based on the inspection criteria you could go into any consumer’s household and shut them down.”
When asked about the critical violations found during last year’s inspection, Parker added, “[Critical violations] are corrected on site. A lot of the repeat [violations] come from turn over of staff… I could tell them until I’m blue in the face, but until inspection they don’t realize it’s the law they need to follow, and I say things for a reason.”
Should inspection results be available to the public? Parker feels there are some holes in the disclosure system,
“It depends on how bad you did. The last [inspection], I wish it would disappear… but I would prefer more of an explanation for consumers. For example, temperature violations are usually a degree or two off, but that doesn’t appear on the website.”
Overall Parker says the poor inspection ranking on the website has negatively affected business.
Bobby T’s landed on the dirty dining list for last year’s July inspection with 8 critical violations, and several inspections throughout the year. Though Greg Bollenbach, co-owner of Bobby T’s, didn’t wish to comment on any of the previous inspections, he did say the inspection process is both necessary and beneficial.
“You’ve got to do it. What [inspection] does is heightens your awareness. If they come in and find a problem with the hold temperatures of one food item it alerts you, and makes you check all your stuff. Overall it improves product safety and quality. And in the end, it’s a learning process for everyone,” explained Bollenbach.
The third restaurant on this dirty dining list, Hunam Express, was inspected seven times last year, four of which in response to customer complaints. Numerous critical violations were observed during nearly all of these inspections, including issues with employee handwashing. No one at the establishment was available for contact.
Though health inspector Brower didn’t give an opinion on the dirtiest diner in Manhattan, she did indicate that corporate establishments usually fair better than privately owned operations. Is this always the case? No, but this time around a corporately owned foodservice establishment didn’t land amoung the dirtiest diners in Manhattan. Why?
Kirk Keling, general manager of Applebee’s in Manhattan, who has had it’s fair share of violations in the past, explained that the health department isn’t the only one to inspect Applebee’s.
“We’re inspected quarterly by operations, semi-annually by Applebee’s, and then at least once a year by the health department,” explained Keling.
But would more inspections result in fewer violations? Unlikely. Is the information on the health department website enough for consumers to make a decision based on? Maybe, but as Brower explained, it is important to recognize that inspection is only a snapshot in time, and an establishment with one violation may not necessarily be safer than an establishment with five.
Regardless of where consumers chose to eat, having the information available online provides choice – those who wish to learn more about their local diner can check the website, and those who could care less, won’t.
Katie Filion and Brandon Speight were students in a food safety reporting class this past semester at Kansas State University
Restaurant inspection reports are available at:
http://kensas.kdhe.state.ks.us/pls/certop/FSresults4?SelStr=(psnam=;pcnty=;pcity=Manhattan;)
Underground restaurants in St. Louis: how bored are Americans?
Food pornography is nothing new. Neither are so-called underground restaurants. That the St. Louis Post-Dispatch thinks both may be new and newsworthy may help explain the decline of American newspapers (and look at that cool arm decal in this pic from the Post, right, below).
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Although underground restaurants have been popping up around the country for several years, this incarnation, launched last summer, appears to be the first of its kind in St. Louis.
Diners learn about an upcoming monthly dinner only through word of mouth. They sign up on a website using a pass code. On the day of the dinner, they get an e-mail telling them where to go. Sometimes it's a private house; other times, it's a rented space. …
Health department officials in the St. Louis area say underground restaurants violate health codes because they lack the proper inspections and permits.
"Even if a church sets up a buffet for a charity event, they need a permit," said Craig LeFebvre, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Health Department.
If someone invites friends to a private dining event in St. Louis County, they're not violating any laws. But if they put up any signs — including a website — and the event is open to a paying public, they need a permit, explained Gerrin Cheek Butler of the county's health department.
The chef, who asked not to be identified, said,
"The whole thing is an experience. It's not just this consumer thing, where you show up, order, and get pushed out the door an hour later."
Correct. It’s a way to charge a premium for porn.
Wales E. coli O157 parents: All food safety inspections should be unannounced
In his report into the 2005 epidemic that struck down more than 150 people, most of them children, across the South Wales Valleys and claimed the life of Mason Jones, aged five (right), Professor Hugh Pennington found that all of the inspections made at the premises of the butcher responsible in the months before people became ill had been pre-arranged.
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This allowed Bridgend-based William Tudor time to clean up and to doctor cleaning records to mislead Bridgend Council’s inspectors.
Prof Pennington has now recommended all inspections, primary and secondary, must be unannounced unless “there are specific and justifiable circumstances or reasons why a pre-arranged visit is necessary”.
The parents of four of the victims want to go further and Julie Price, Jeanette Thomas and Mason’s mother Sharon Mills, are re-forming an action group in a bid to achieve their aim.
“We want to make it illegal for hygiene inspectors to carry out announced visits of butchers and other places where food is prepared,” said Mrs Price, mother of 13-year-old Garyn, who was left fighting for his life after contracting the food poisoning bug which spread through school dinners.
“We want that set in stone.”
Unannounced inspections are recommended in The Food Law Practice Guidance (Wales). But announced inspections remain lawful and continue to happen.
Selling home-baking banned in Urbana
It’s springtime so bring on variable interpretation of health code rules, the plight of home bakers and outraged local politicians.
"I will not stay silent. Most people who go to the farmers' market know it's not made in a commercial-grade kitchen."
That’s Alderwoman Heather Stevenson, R-Ward 6, of Urbana, Illinois, criticizing a new policy banning the sales of home-baked goods, at Monday's city council meeting.
Jim Roberts, director of environmental health for the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District said the district has long allowed the sale of many home-baked goods at farmers' market but after he attended a January panel discussion about farmers' markets sponsored by the University of Illinois Extension Service and The Land Connection, and after checking with other area health departments, he felt compelled to revisit the issue.
He said, selling baked goods commercially on a weekly basis for several months a year is "a business," and is not allowed under the law unless the baked goods are cooked in a certified kitchen with a permit from the health department.
Roberts made the mistake of thinking, and then publicly sharing his thoughts.
My understanding is that public health types are actively discouraged from such nefarious activities, otherwise they face the wrath of local politicians.
We shared our thoughts about the necessity of health umpires here a couple of years ago.
Who should be in charge of food inspections?
The New York Times reported this morning on the California leafy greens industry’s hiring of government inspectors in lieu of government-imposed visits by inspectors.
The almond industry and the Florida tomato industry have also instituted their own safety measures that invited oversight by federal agencies when the government did not independently provide it.
“It’s an understandable response when the federal government has left a vacuum,” said Michael R. Taylor, a former officer in two federal food-safety agencies and now a professor at George Washington University. But, he added, “it’s not a substitute” for serious federal regulation.
Is it the government’s responsibility to ensure that food is safe to eat, or is it the responsibility of those producing, processing, and selling it? Both, of course, in addition to those choosing to consume it and feed it to their loved ones.
Then, what’s so great about government-imposed inspections as opposed to inspections the food industry asks for? After devastating outbreaks in each industry awakened them to their invested interest in food safety, these three have been vigilant about minimizing the microbial risks to their commodities. Would the feds do a better job?
According to the Washington Post, a report by Taylor and his colleagues at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services determined that federal regulation of the inspection system and others is necessary to provide cohesion (and presumably increase efficacy) among safety-assuring efforts. In the report the authors urged Congress to “create a single cohesive food safety network composed of local, state and federal agencies and accountable to the secretary of health and human services.”
Some coordination certainly might move the country toward reducing the number of people who get sick from the food they eat. But each link in the food supply chain must remain proactive in their role in assuring food is safe to consume—regardless of who’s the boss.
Domino's food prep disaster
Kristy and Michael used to work at Domino’s Pizza in North Carolina. Then they decided to upload their, uh, creative approach to food preparation to youtube.
The videos were later taken off of youtube, but GoodAsYou managed to snag all of them including one of Michael wiping his ass with a sponge and then using it to clean a pan.All the videos are there. Essential tools for future food service training.
Tim McIntyre, vp communications, Domino's Pizza, LLC, wrote to GoodAsYou to say,
“Thank you for bringing these to our attention. I don’t have the words to say how repulsed I am by this – other than to say that these two individuals do not represent that 125,000 people in 60 countries who work hard every day to make good food and provide great customer service. I’ve turned this over to our security department. We will find them. There are far too many clues that will allow us to determine their location quite easily.”
Dirty restaurant restrooms send customers out the door
Rating bathrooms is one of those stories that just won’t go away.
But are restrooms really indicative of restaurant cleanliness?
The Detroit Free Press reports this morning that an online survey of 2,175 adults by Harris Interactive last year found that 88% of people who visit restaurants believe that restroom cleanliness reflects the restaurant's overall hygiene, including sanitary standards in the kitchen and prep areas.
But is that assumption correct -- or just a myth?
Health Department officials contacted about the survey said they couldn't say because they've never studied the subject -- and they wouldn't speculate.
Ben says that while dirty bathrooms can be gross, like the gotcha moments on hidden camera programs, there really isn't any information that suggests a place with a dirty bathroom is any more or less likely to cause an outbreak than a place with a clean bathroom. Risk-based inspection systems focus on factors that lead to illness as identified by the CDC and WHO -- not the floors, walls and ceilings, and how many flies are on a fly strip.
Butcher of Wales report out Thursday
During an inquiry last year, Prof Hugh Pennington heard how John Tudor and Son, known on barfblog as the Butcher of Wales, used the same machine to vacuum package both raw and cooked meats, leading to an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak beginning in Sept. 2005, which sickened some150 children in 44 schools in southern Wales and killed five-year-old Mason Jones..jpg)
Sharon Mills, Mason's mother and vocal food safety activist, was quoted in the Western Mail today as saying,
“There should be zero tolerance of rogue traders like Tudor.
“Health inspectors should not give people so many chances. Tudor fobbed them off so many times.
“Some meat producers could be dicing with death and they shouldn’t be given a second chance or allowed a few weeks to make things better because it can have a devastating effect. The inspectors should shut them down until they get it right.”
Ms Mills, also mum to Chandler, 11, and Cavan, four, said she hopes Professor Pennington will also recommend a change in the law to force butchers to have entirely separate areas for the processing of raw and cooked meat with separate sets of equipment for each.
“I would also like to see better training for GPs and hospitals, so they become more aware of the bacterium and more aware of the signs of infection so they can hospitalise people as soon as possible,”
“My little boy is lying in a cemetery. He died for nothing, so some good has got to come out of it. We also need to be looking at the health inspectors themselves and asking if they have the right training and if they are the right people to do the job. Are they strong enough to stand up to the people who break the rules?”
Inspection is part of the solution, but is only one factor in safe food production. Lowering the incidents of foodborne illness is not going to happen with increased inspection alone -- what Mills suggests about the quality of inspection, and looking for the right indicators is more important. Having inspectors, auditors, coaches, etc. who know the production, processing and preparation systems and who can be the bug is the key to risk reduction.
Health inspections, an inspectors' perspective
I will never forget my very first restaurant inspection after I graduated from the Environmental Health program. I was this little nervous man geared up and ready to save the world from foodborne illness. Upon strolling into my first restaurant, it turned out that the operators were more nervous than I was. I kind of felt like my hero Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness ready to unleash fury on them. This should never be the case. Apparently, the establishment did not have a good relationship with the previous inspector.
There are two different types of inspectors, the black and white regulators who essentially enforce the law without explanation and the one who spends time discussing food related issues and guides operators. An inspection, whether announced or unannounced, is a snapshot in time and is not indicative of what actually goes on. It is far more important that inspectors discuss food safety issues in conjunction with health regulations. Inspectors throw words around such as cross contamination or danger zone, but does the operator even knows what those words actually mean? It is easy for an inspector to enter an establishment and tell the cook, listen you need to use a digital thermometer to verify that your burger is properly cooked. In some jurisdictions, an offence notice will accompany that statement. Sure the cook can probe the burger when the inspector is around, but do they know what temperature they should be aiming for? It is important to work with food operators and discuss food safety issues to compel them rather than scare them.
Market food safety so consumers can choose
The news this morning is full of features and editorials seeking to explain the shit storm of Salmonella produced by Peanut Corporation of America.
Chapman and I tried to take it a step further and focus on effective, long-term steps to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness from farm-to-fork. At this point in time, promoting food safety culture coupled with marketing and a series of carrots and sticks is the best we can come up with.
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In 1204 in Montpellier, France, a butcher selling a substitute meat in place of the advertized beast was required by statute to reimburse the customer twice the amount paid. In Narbonne, regulations dictated a whipping “with sheep tripe” in front of the food stall for unscrupulous sellers. China routinely executes its biggest food frauds.
During a hearing before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee looking into a salmonella outbreak linked to a Georgia peanut processing plant, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Thursday that food producers responsible for widespread, deadly outbreaks of disease should face jail time, not just fines, to get food makers to take food safety seriously.
Sixteen years after E. coli O157:H7 killed four and sickened hundreds who ate hamburgers at the Jack-in-the-Box chain, the challenge remains: how to get people to take food safety seriously?
Lots of companies do take food safety seriously and the bulk of American meals are microbiologically safe. But recent food safety failures have been so extravagant, so insidious and so continual that consumers must feel betrayed.
The politicos in Washington are focused on legislative fixes, maybe creating a single-food inspection agency, maybe increasing inspections, insisting microbiological test results be submitted to government, maybe mandating jail time for the most audacious executives. Such moves may send a signal of hope and change, but will do little to reduce the carnage contaminated food and water wreak on the American public each year – 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths.
Industry – the folks that process peanuts and all those companies that make some of the 1,550 different peanut butter crackers, ice cream, energy bars and dog treats that have been recalled – is equally void of ideas. The system to ensure safe food relies largely on so-called third-party audits of suppliers, a system that glowingly approved Peanut Corporation of America and its leaky roof, filthy floors and rat-infested storage areas.
Other peanut butter manufacturers like Unilever and ConAgra Foods say they have “stringent food safety and quality control standards.” But neither will say what it is they do better than PCA; neither will say how often the plants test their finished product for foodborne illnesses or other contamination. Maple Leaf Foods in Canada, whose deli meats killed at least 20 Canadians last fall, says it has done 42,000 tests for listeria across 24 packaged meat plants in the past three months, but will not make the results publicly available for scrutiny.
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Even Whole Foods, where consumers pay a hefty premium for basic foodstuffs, said the company carefully checks the paperwork for all the products it sells, but can do no better than the minimal standard of government. “For the thousands of products we sell, that’s the extent we can go to. The rest of it is up to the F.D.A. and to the manufacturer.”
Like a fiscal house of cards, the Ponzi scheme of inspection and verification for food safety is collapsing with merely the mention of consumer scrutiny. Sort of like an eighth grade party with chaperones -- just pop and chips. But when the inspector or auditors leaves, the party turns exciting (read all about it on Facebook).
A cultural shift is required for everyone, from the farm through to the fork, to take food safety seriously. Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart has taken an initial stab in his new book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System.
Yiannas says that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture. At Peanut Corporation of America, former employees are now coming forward to tell of filthy conditions in the Blakely, Georgia, processing plant. A company with a strong food safety culture would have encouraged those employees to speak up while they were employed, not because the manager or auditor or inspector was watching, but because it was the right thing to do.
The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.
Here’s what consumers can do: at the local market, the stop-n-shop or the supermarket, ask someone, how do I know this food won’t make me barf? While such talk may be socially frowned upon, it’s time to put aside the niceties and bureau-speak and talk directly about safe food.
The more customers ask, the more food providers will be encouraged to market their food safety efforts.
Just like in 13th century France.
Doug Powell is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the publisher of barfblog.com. Ben Chapman is a food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University.
The peanut butter solution
With at least eight dead, 575 sick and 1,200 products recalled because of Salmonella in peanut thingies, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee began hearings yesterday to figure out the peanut butter solution.
Some want jail time for company execs; more inspectors; public oversight of microbial test results; a single food inspection agency; better auditors, and so on.
Maybe the 1985 movie, The Peanut Butter Solution, had it right. Or late 1960s psychedelic band, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Or the B-side to the Jimmy Buffett tearjerker, He Went to Paris, from the 1973 album, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, "Peanut Butter Conspiracy."
Inspection and reality
I'm not a fan of focusing on food safety inspections or audits (and neither is Doug). Sometimes it gets us plunked into the does-not-play-well-with-others category. That's fine. Here's the deal: After playing hockey with government folks and talking to lots of inspectors I really like them. I like the idea of what they’re trying to accomplish (and I'll even try to set them up for open-net goals) but the whole concept of inspection as verification of actual food safety practices is flawed.
The theory behind inspection is that an operator (of a processing company, a restaurant, a church dinner, whatever) has a set of guidelines to follow to make and sell safe food. That part is fine. The inspector/auditor then comes in to tell them whether they are doing things right or not, and record that information. This is where it falls apart. That time the auditor/inspector spends in the facility represents an unrealistic snapshot of what actually happens. Even if multiple inspectors show up to a facility over a period of time to gather more snapshots, what they see will likely be different. The human factor, around risk identification varies. Some inspectors really know the laws and regulations and risk is black and white. Others see the gray areas. What's more important to the health and safety of customers is what happens when the inspectors, or auditors, or the boss, aren’t there.
A couple of years ago, Brae Surgeoner and I interviewed restaurant operators and environmental health officers about their views regarding restaurant inspection. Almost all of the operators suggested that inspection was a good thing, and that they had a good relationship with EHOs. And that’s when things got fun. Restaurant operators reported to us that what was being seen and recorded wasn't representative of what was really happening with every meal. They adjusted their personnel and their procedures so they looked good. It's kind of like an 8th grade house party with chaperones. Just pop and chips. But when the inspector leaves the party turns exciting. The best part of the study for us was that the inspectors reported the same thing: they felt they weren’t getting the full picture and knew everyone was on their best behavior while they were around (just like the parents).
So what’s to be done? The parents are part of it, but a block parent camped out checking that everyone's breath doesn't smell like peach schnapps isn’t the answer (because folks will find ways around it, like chewing lots of Juicy Fruit gum). The scare tactic of getting caught might work in the short term, but compelling operators to create a food safety culture, that will enhance their business is a better focus.
In this climate of uncertainty, it’s time for the really good peanut butter companies to step up, open their doors and show everyone how they prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness. Not their inspection or audit results, but a compelling story on how they identify and control risks. This is where the biggest return on all those food safety dollars might be seen, especially if the company can back it up and start marketing it to their customers.
KATIE FILION: Sudbury should make scores public, eh? Batta-boom batta-bing.
Last month while visiting friends in Sudbury, Ontario, we ate at East Side Mario’s restaurant – I love the unlimited salad and breadsticks. Though I didn’t have any problems with my meal, a patron who ate lunch at the Lasalle boulevard restaurant Dec. 30 did, and voiced a complaint to the Sudbury District Health Unit, according to the Sudbury Star.
"The patron complained about employees coughing on food, improper employee hand washing and a lack of hot water. A visit by the health inspector the next day didn’t reveal any violations, but it was recommended the restaurant review food education and handling practices with its employees. After a follow-up inspection resulted in a charge for lack of sanitizer in the mechanical glass washer, vice-president of operations at East Side Mario’s decided to close the restaurant. Employees from East Side Mario’s head office were sent in to help the local site return to company standards.
Though charges for the Lasalle Boulevard restaurant were made public it’s not typical of health and safety infractions in the Sudbury district. Here people must phone and ask about any problems at a restaurant or food store and receive either a verbal or written report about inspection reports, closures and convictions, said Stacey Laforest, manager of the health unit's environmental division.
There are better ways to communicate restaurant inspection results than simply disclosing information to curious consumers who call in. Many health units in North America are making results available via websites, like the Toronto, Ontario website DineSafe (http://app.toronto.ca/food2/DineSafeMain); or mandatory posting of inspection score cards (in the form of letter, grade, color, or smiley-face schemes) near the entrance of premises. Increasing the availability and display of food safety information will raise overall awareness, and push food establishments to better themselves. The Greater Sudbury district could benefit from such disclosure methods.
Katie Filion is a soon-to-be graduate student at Kansas State University who currently resides in Doug and Amy's basement.
Restaurant inspection disclosure: Build it and they will come
Baseball is sooooooooo boring.
But I’ll use any metaphor and pop culture reference to get people to pay attention to food safety stuf.
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Even if it involves baseball.
The restaurant inspection disclosure web site in Nova Scotia – that’s in Canada – has been overwhelmed with hits since going on-line.
That’s normal. From Sydney to Scranton, the provision of restaurant inspection results is always a big hit with the public.
What’s not normal is the response from Luc Erjavec, of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, who said it’s no biggie and that the $325,000 the province spent to create the online database could have been used to stimulate the restaurant sector.
"Maybe we could spend a half million dollars stimulating our industry. Stimulating our industry would be a better way to do it."
OOOOOhhhhhhhh. Such sexy talk.
But, as the Herald Chronicle reports this morning, millions of people went to the Agriculture Department’s website in the days following its launch in October, Leo Muise, executive director of regulation and compliance for food safety, said Wednesday.
"The first week was what we consider to be an almost unbelievable response. It seems to be going over well."
On the second day alone, about 1.5 million people checked out the food-safety inspections of restaurants and other businesses. The numbers gradually dropped over the next few months and now about 1,000 people a week use the site to look up the records for several eateries at a time.
The Chronicle Herald published a series of stories in 2006 and 2007 that exposed deficiencies in Nova Scotia’s system of inspecting restaurants. The inspection reports obtained by this newspaper noted infractions such as rodents, unsafe meat and cross-contamination of food.
At the time, the department wasn’t in favour of creating public online access to a database of inspections and cited concerns that such a practice might be bad for business at some restaurants.
Now, substitute “hockey” for “baseball” in the video clip below.
Would having more inspectors really keep Listeria out of RTE meats?
Maybe I'm cynical about the whole thing, but I don't see overworked meat inspectors being the most important factor leading to the Maple Leaf/Listeria outbreak. I don't know what more inspectors would have done about Listeria living deep inside a slicer.
Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union representing food inspectors through the Public Service Alliance of Canada thinks the lack of inspectors and resources is exactly what the problem was -- and he's trumpeting that opinion again today.
In an article about the lack of progress of a promised government inquiry of the outbreak Kingston says changes proposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency include more stringent oversight, more reporting and more rigorous testing.
"They sort of put all the right pieces in place except for one thing: they haven't been given any resources to do it. With all the government's talk about how well resourced the agency was, and how they were going to make sure that whatever needed to be done was done, they haven't come up with a single penny yet."
The union is calling for 1,000 more inspectors and veterinarians across the entire food-safety system. At least 200 more are needed for processed-meat inspection alone, Kingston says.
"If you talk to the average inspector out there, they figure they've probably got about twice as many plants as they feel comfortable with."
So what will these extra inspectors do, and how are they going to help companies like Maple Leaf implement the culture of food safety we hear so much about? Regulators need to evolve and do a better job helping folks from farm-to-fork to develop a food safety culture, and verify that their steps reduce risk are being implemented.
The best part of the article was related to the political dancing-with-stars mess around this magical inquiry:
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz's office deferred questions about the delay to the Prime Minister's Office.
"An announcement will be made in due course," said PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas.
Classic.
'I'd like a large pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and band-aid'
A pizza topped with a band-aid has landed a southern Sydney Dominos Pizza on an Australian state government's name and shame list of food safety infringements.
The New South Wales Food Authority name and shame website currently contains 317 businesses with 502 fines issued.
Primary Industries Ian Macdonald said the list was designed to stop individuals and companies that cut corners on food safety for consumers.
"The fines have been for a range of breaches including dirty premises, allowing pests into food preparation areas and inappropriate temperature control of foods.”
The website, has had over 1.4 million visitors since it was launched in July.
Roaches, slime may force Szechuan Panda in Gainesville to close
Yes, Mr. Kang, Chinese food can be cooked to food safety regulations.
The Gainesville Sun reports that a Florida judge has recommended shutting down the Szechuan Panda Chinese Restaurant for repeated health violations that were not corrected over several inspections between December 2007 and March of this year.
Administrative Law Judge Ella Jane Davis issued the recommended order Nov. 19 after an Aug. 5 hearing for owner Yu Zeng Kang to dispute a complaint filed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Division of Hotels and Restaurants.
Daniel Fulton, senior sanitation and safety specialist with the division, inspected the restaurant five times between Dec. 19, 2007, and March 30, 2008. He reported repeat violations that included live roaches in food preparation and food service areas, dead roaches throughout the building, food stored at improper temperatures, an "unidentified slime" growing in a food container, food stored directly on the floor and improper utensils used to handle food.
According to the judge's order, Kang responded through an interpreter that most of the violations were because "Chinese cooking was not conducive to meeting the regulations."
Kang also testified that dead roaches were swept out every night, however the judge noted that those found the following morning remained until the nightly cleaning, the order said.
Sydney Pizza Hut fails third cockroach inspection by the Australian name-and-shame squad
Think a few small bugs won’t hurt you? Think again. Cockroaches are one of the most commonly noted pest insects. They can cause chaos in the food safety standards of a restaurant because they transport harmful microbes on their body surfaces and through their droppings. Cockroaches are also found to be a common allergen for humans.
Last week, after two previous warnings about cockroaches in the kitchen, food safety inspectors returned to a Sydney, Australia Pizza Hut only to discover a cockroach in the food preparation area of the kitchen.
The store was issued with a $650 fine for not taking steps to eradicate the pests, and a second fine for not having warm running water in the kitchen for staff to wash their hands...The Pizza Hut was one of 22 premises the Food Authority fined in its blitz in recent days, in which it issued a total of 27 fines.
They will join more than 175 outlets on the authority's website, launched last year to "name and shame" businesses that do not comply with NSW hygiene laws.
The best way to deal with cockroaches is to prevent them before they become present. Keep kitchen surfaces clean and store food off the ground. However, if a restaurant already suffers from cockroaches, the problem should be eliminated and the reason behind the infestation should also be addressed. There are various chemicals and traps available for cockroaches, some more traditional than others.
For more information about cockroach infestations, visit: http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d001201-d001300/d001251/d001251.html
You can also view an FSN infosheet about cockroaches at http://bp3.blogger.com/_Pzk3AzZPULs/R1cP6_KHaiI/AAAAAAAAAFA/MwcjU8l0_y0/s1600-h/iFSN-infosheet-12-5-07.jpg
Food workers: If you're sick, stay at home
The Delaware County Health Department and others in Indiana are starting to crack down on food establishments that lack a policy of excluding employees from work if they have one of five illnesses.
The Star Press reports that during recent inspections, the county health department instructed the following establishments to have an employee illness/infection control policy in place by January: Gene's Lounge, Pilot/Subway in Daleville, McDonald's in Daleville, Byrd's Landing Bar and Grill, Cowan Elementary and High schools, Central High School, Daleville Elementary and High schools and Papa John's on Madison Street.
Robert Murphy, manager of the Fazoli's in Muncie, said,
"We have posted something in back that lets all employees know what the new policy is. It's really a good idea to post it so everybody knows about it. The flu season will be coming up before you know it."
Keith Ramsey, manager of MCL Cafeteria at Muncie Mall, said,
"We are in business to serve good, wholesome-cooked food to nourish bodies. If people are sick, they need to stay home."
The state health department says food service operators might not be comfortable discussing "private" matters like diarrhea, vomiting and boils, but for the spread of disease to be prevented, illnesses and symptoms must be discussed.
Headline hysteria: Food inspection 'disaster' looms
The reporter started in about how she had some document, and a guy got fired and would I review it.
I said, e-mail it, I don’t want to wake my wife, bye.Last week, it was reported that an employee with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was fired after sharing a document that supposedly outlines changes to food inspection and labeling in Canada.
This reporter had an exclusive copy of the document and was seeking so-called expert opinion on its contents.
This is what I e-mailed the reporter (I rarely use capitals or proper grammar in e-mail messages)
I've reviewed the document; not sure what the big deal is
government will always being looking to save money, as they should; any proposed change would have to be measured against the potential impact to public health
the underlying principle is: Industry has a responsibility to produce safe food -- from farm to fork. Government is there to verify and enforce.
there are specifics to consider with each summary point -- for example, would eliminating funding for BSE testing encourage less testing?
but based on these summaries, it's difficult to say much; and as the (Ottawa) Citizen story says, there's no surprises here; the agency has been moving in this direction for years
In a subsequent message, I said,
sorry i couldn't have added more, but the real issue seems to be the termination of this person's appointment
CFIA does lots of insufficient food safety things, but they aren't covered in that document
The story that appeared Saturday was typically Canadian – long on speculation, short on substance.
One source, described as “a leading Canadian academic specializing in food risk management” spoke only on the condition of anonymity. What’s the point of having tenure if academics won’t go on the public record? Maybe the unknown academic was embarrassed by his or her comments.
"Reducing food safety controls at this time could be disastrous if there is an outbreak of a new food-borne disease.”
The document contained summary points about shuffling responsibilities – it said nothing about reducing food safety controls. For those who think government is in control when it comes to food safety, spend some time in the food safety world, not just when it’s fashionable.
After paragraphs of baseless speculation, my e-mail message was turned into a quote:
Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University, said, "Industry has a responsibility to produce safe food, from farm to fork. Government is there to verify and enforce."
But the best part is what isn’t in the story, A reporter from a national television news outlet called Ben for comment, and subsequently told Ben they had killed the story: not enough substance.
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Strict safety guidelines enforced as produce travels from Mexico
“In December, officials took a sample for testing from a 5,500-pound load of Mexican basil moving through the Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego. The basil continued on to its destination and was sold to restaurants and other customers in California, Texas and Illinois the next day. When the test results came back two weeks later, they suggested salmonella contamination, sparking a late recall.”
It's much better to design safety into all operations, beginning on the farm.
Glenn Fry helps run Taylor Farms de Mexico's new $14 million plant in San José Iturbide, Mexico. He picked the land where it sits, designed just about every facet of it, and he manages more than 800 workers who plant, harvest and package produce – including lettuce, onions and broccoli – for export to the U.S.Today’s story says that Taylor Farms is just one of a handful of U.S. companies lured by Mexico's ideal year-round growing climate, proximity to Texas, low labor costs and plentiful workforce.
During a recent lettuce harvest, quality-control supervisor Laura Patino pointed to an aide who monitors workers coming out of the mobile toilets at the end of the fields to make sure they wash their hands before returning to work.
"Many of our workers don't even have toilets at home, so this is new to them," Ms. Patino explains. "We've literally taught many of them how to go to the restroom. It's that basic."
The lettuce field – owned by Oscar A. Bitar Macedo and leased by Taylor – is fenced off from outside "contamination." Heavy strips of yellow plastic keep out dogs, cattle and other livestock.
Mr. Bitar, owner of Rancho Don Alberto, leases all of his 100 hectares (about 247 acres) to Taylor. And he's responsible for maintenance, water wells, monthly water testing, fencing, security guards and, yes, even toilet paper. …
Within two hours, 24 boxes, each holding about 850 pounds of lettuce, are transported to Taylor's plant a few miles down the road for the first of several safety checks.
At the entrance, 19-year-old Efigenia Rosas checks the boxes to make sure they're labeled with bar codes identifying the owner's farm, crew supervisor, field and time of harvest – a crucial step in the process. If a consumer later finds a problem, Taylor can trace the produce back to the field and farmer. …
At 6 p.m., driver Roman Ayala, an employee of Flensa Trucking, begins the drive north on Mexico's Highway 57. He's in no rush because he has no chance of getting to Nuevo Laredo before Customs shuts down the bridge at 11 p.m. And it won't reopen until 8 a.m., something that frustrates Mr. Fry to no end.
"How can the U.S. government be serious about food safety when they shut down the border overnight and perishable goods have to sit there and wait?" he asks.
There is also a good video overview of the lettuce harvesting procedures available along with the story at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/mexico/stories/063008dningproducttaylor.40d72a3.html
Florida restaurant fined for keeping bread in bathroom
Employees at the Checkers store on South French Avenue at West 15th Street apparently decided it was okay to store buns for their hamburgers inside a not-so-clean men's room.
Tuesday, it appeared they had changed the policy, but not before racking up a dozen health code violations.
Fancy food does not mean safe food: Whole Foods and golf club edition
Store manager David Cosper said the market’s sheer size and diversity of offerings may have contributed towards the failing grade, which Whole Foods took steps to fix “immediately."The major violations included improper handwashing and use of gloves at a hot counter area, improper hot and cold holding temperatures in several food areas and lack of availability of hot or cold water at two sinks. Other violations included improper handling of food and food storage, uncovered containers and missing sneeze guards.
In Virginia, the Daily Press reports that Ford's Colony, a popular gated community in James City County complete with a 200-acre wildlife preserve, a wine cellar with 1,600 labels and three 18-hole golf courses, has also, on occasion, been home to poorly dated food, meat kept at improper temperatures and employees who were caught not washing their hands.
Ford's Colony is hardly the only private club with health violations in Hampton Roads. Country clubs, yacht clubs and golf clubs with exclusive memberships from James City to Suffolk have all recently received critical marks that belie the air of posh living these communities pride themselves on.
It's like Ben and I discovered during the halfway point of a food safety golf tournament in Baltimore in 2005, when a burley, 50-ish goateed he-man requested his hamburger be cooked, "Bloody … with cheese."
His sidekick piped up, "Me too."
I asked the kid flipping burgers if he had a meat thermometer.
He replied, snickering, "Yeah, this is a pretty high-tech operation."
The young woman taking orders glanced about, and then confided that she didn't think there was a meat thermometer anywhere in the kitchen; this, at a fancy golf course catering to weddings and other swanky functions along with grunts on the golf course.
Health department sued over inspection
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poor inspection. Owners of Mo's Restaurant in Monticello, Indiana, claim that following inspections of their restaurant, health department employees "negligently and/or intentionally prepar[ed] a false and defamatory Food Inspection Report" on three different occasions. A story in the town's Herald-Journal says, "The lawsuit seeks a judgment against the defendants in an amount sufficient to compensate Drake and Liebner for their losses, including permanent and temporary damage, loss of value, loss of profits, loss of use, costs of repair and mental and emotional stress, as well as "such further relief as the court deems appropriate."
Fancy food does not mean safe food -- really
Proving once again that fancy food does not mean safe food, Your Local Guardian reports that of the 539 establishments rated in Merton, U.K. this year under the Scores on the Doors rating scheme, supported by the Food Standards Agency, 94 were given a one-star or "poor" rating and 31 were given a no star or "very poor" rating, making a total of 125.The rating ranges from no stars for the worst levels of compliance, through to five stars for the very best standards of food safety management. A two star rating is defined as largely compliant with national requirements.
Jeff Ward, general manager of Cannizaro House Hotel, which received no stars, said"We are the only four-star hotel in the area and have two rosettes from the AA. I was shocked by the rating. We have spent £20,000 on the kitchen since then and will be inviting the inspectors back to reassess us now."
Steve Barr, Secretary of London Scottish Golf Club, which received no stars, said, "We think the rating was unfair because we were in the process of changing our steward and caterers. We are very confident we will get a much better rating next time."
Alberta sets provincewide standards for restaurants and inspection disclosure
One year after a three-part investigation by the Edmonton Journal, Karen Kleiss reports this morning that the number of compulsory restaurant closures is up, health regions across the province have adopted minimum standards, and all Albertans can expect to have online access to inspection results by July 1.Capital Health Authority spokesman Steve Buick, referring to lessons learned after last year's complaints by the public and provincial auditor general, said,
"We think generally the system has served people well, but it needed upgrading in a few key respects, and certainly the disclosure issue is one of them. We get that the public wants to see more information. ... It needs to be more transparent, and it will be."
Health Minister Dave Hancock has ordered all Alberta health regions to adopt uniform risk assessment and management standards, and he wants all Alberta health regions to come up with a plan to make restaurant inspection reports available online.
Robert Bradbury, director of public health for the Calgary Health Region, said,
"We will move as close to complete disclosure as we possibly can. It's all about choice. The more information the dining public has, the better prepared they are to make that choice."
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Another convert. Now, what is the most effective and meaningful way to communicate the results of restaurant inspections?Last year, The Journal put a searchable database of restaurant inspections on the edmontonjournal.com website. It received more than 500,000 hits.
Repeat restaurant offenders? Open by breakfast
The news team ended up at the Jade Dragon in Clarksville,
one of the worst offenders around when it comes to dirty kitchens; in the last two years, the Jade Dragon has repeatedly failed its surprise inspections, getting scores as low as a 58, 52, even a 47.
The manager told us, "Everything's clean."
The TV crew poked around and discovered what appeared to be many of the same violations the joint had been cited for previously.
Eventually the manager of the Jade Dragon asked, while the cameras rolled,
"Can we get everything stopped? I don't want to be on TV at all."
Hugh Atkins with the state Health Department was quoted as saying,
"We don't allow an unsafe restaurant to remain open," and that if a restaurant is open, it's safe.
Ronnie Hart with the Tennessee Restaurant Association said,
"The bottom line is fix the problem. You can't put a band-aid on it. Fix the problem," adding that his group has little patient for repeat offenders and is now pushing for mandatory food safety training.
We agree.
Fancy food doesn't mean safe food
Serendipity 3, a famous New York City restaurant which last week unveiled what it called the most expensive dessert in the world, has been shut down by the city Department of Health after a second failed health inspection Wednesday night.Inspectors found the restaurant
"crawling with cockroaches, mice and flies. Inspectors spotted a live mouse and mouse droppings in many areas of the restaurant."
One customer was quoted as saying,
"I am in shock. You know a friend of mine from Washington, D.C. asked me to come by to Serendipity especially to pick some coffee up. So I get here, it's chain and everything and they found a hundred roaches in there."
Restaurant inspection discloure: consumers love it
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Mark Arsenault of the Rhode Island Providence-Journal is the latest to validate what I've long suspected: that the dining public apparently has a huge appetite for information about food safety.Arsenault says that tens of thousands of people have viewed health inspection reports for Rhode Island restaurants, delis, convenience stores and other places food is served since the reports first became available online last Tuesday.
Ernest M. Julian, chief of the Office of Food Protection at the Rhode Island Department of Health, said,
“We had one person call us who said they searched for 100 places online. People are checking all the places they eat. … It’s obvious the public wants this information, based on the number of views."
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The Health Department has posted a database of some 4,000 food service inspection reports, covering about half the food establishments in the state, dating back to January. The reports list health violations with short explanations. The inspection reports are available at www.health.ri.gov/environment/food/inspections.php.After being publicized by local media, the site attracted so much Web traffic on Thursday that an Internet traffic jam developed that temporarily slowed the site.
Restaurant inspection disclosure on its own does little, but does contribute to developing a culture that values microbiologically safe food.
Will more inspectors make food safer?
No. An Associated Press story last night continues the fascination with all things political and the on-going, bureaucratic discussion about whether a single food inspection agency will improve food safety.
The story notes that in the two ConAgra contamination cases, it turns out that an FDA inspector hadn't been to the company's peanut butter plant in Georgia for two years before the recall, while a USDA inspector visits the Missouri pot pie plant daily.
If that's the case, then maybe inspectors are the wrong focus here.
Bill Marler got it right yesterday when he wrote about the same AP story that,
Frankly, I am not sure a single agency, or the government for that matter (remember how well it did in Hurricane Katrina), will solve the problem of companies selling poisoned products to customers. Perhaps when farmers, ranchers, shippers, middlemen of all sorts, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and restaurants all recall that customers could be their kid, they would put safety before profits.
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I expressed a similar notion this morning in the Baltimore Sun. "You can't inspect your way to a safe food supply," said Douglas Powell, scientific director at Kansas State University's International Food Safety Network. "You can't have an inspector on every site 24/7 to inspect every piece of food that goes to market. You have to create a culture where everyone from the farm to the processing facility, people at restaurants, consumers at home are more in tune with the culture of food safety. People need to get really religious about this. Food safety is everyone's responsibility."
How best to develop a food safety culture is where we're focusing much of our research activity.
It's certainly more than telling people,
"We have the safest food supply in the world,"
as Mindy Brashears, director of the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University, did in the same Baltimore Sun story.
Scores on doors
That's the snappy name the U.K. is using for restaurant inspection disclosure across the entire country.For instance, one story reports that food hygiene standards at more than 60 catering outlets across Bradford district, UK, have been graded very poor and their staff had "little or no appreciation of food safety."
The results released and posted on the website www.scoresonthedoors.org, give each outlet a grading of between none and five stars.
The story notes that the prestigious Ilkley Golf Club in Nesfield Road, where top golfer Colin Montgomerie learned to play and names former European Ryder Cup captain Mark James as an honorary member, was among those retaurants given no stars -- the lowest ranking possible.
The council's grading system defines no stars as a performance level very poor' and that club staff show "a general failure to comply with legal requirements" and "little or no appreciation of food safety."
Inspectors also found that there was "little" confidence in management.
Ratings for all the catering outlets the inspectors visited are available at www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk.
We're all for restaurant inspection disclosure, not because it necessarily enhances the microbial safety of food, but it does contribute to a food safety culture.
Restaurant inspection -- by Larry the Cable Guy
Despite being universally panned by critics and avoided by moviegoers, I finally saw Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector while editing news the other night. Sure it's terrible and deserves its #87 ranking in IMDb's Bottom 100, but it has some food safety moments.When Larry's partner, Amy Butlin, asks,
"How did you become a health inspector? I mean working for the government, it sounds so exciting?"
Larry responds:
"Well, I gotta tell ya, Keepin people from blowin' chunks and crappin' on themselves is pretty much all I've ever been good at. I mean, no one really knows the responsibility I carry around."
Favorite line? After ingesting some tainted food, Larry proclaims:
"My stomach ain't felt this bad since I got the fish sticks out of the vending machine at the Phillips 66."
Dairy Queen has repeat violations
Healthinspections.com is reporting that a Dairy Queen in Daytona Beach was fined $900 for repeated problems such as untrained employees handling food and foods held at dangerous temperatures.Based on a review of thousands of health inspections in 12 cities, Dairy Queen has one of the worst records in the fast food industry, often with critical violations that have not been corrected since the last inspection. The chain has one of the worst records in fast food for repeating the same health code violation time and again.
Employee hygiene is the number one problem at DQ – accounting for 22% of the chain's violations. Hygiene includes everything from workers not washing their hands to employees found eating and drinking in the kitchen.
Near Denver, for example, an inspector watched an employee "wipe nose, take money," and continue to prepare food without washing.
Curb Your Enthusiasm again features L.A.'s restaurant inspection grades
I never liked the television series, Seinfeld.During it's original run from 1989 -- 1998, I rarely watched, and when I did, found the characters self-indulgent and whiny. Which they were. It just wasn't that funny.
Curb Your Enthusiasm by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David is much better.
For the second week now of the new season, the Los Angeles restaurant inspection signs -- in both cases A -- are prominently displayed.
Tonight, as Larry is waiting to get ice cream behind a sample abuser -- someone who asks to sample every flavor available -- a big L.A. restaurant inspection A is displayed in the window (thanks, Reece, for finding this pic).
Larry won't however take the $50 he is owed in a golf bet from the newly orphaned Marty Funkhouser after the death of his mother, preceded by the death of his father last year, because of its dodgy microbiological quality after being removed from the insole of Marty's jogging shoe.
Larry also says that the customer is usually "a moron and an a**hole."
But they pay. And they like their restaurant inspection disclosure letters (L.A.), colors (Toronto), or smiley faces (Denmark).
Orlando, this is directed at you.
Intervention: it's not just a bad TV show, it's a new type of restaurant inspection enforcement
Gee's Garden Bistro, 1145 N. Alvernon Way, Tuscon, Arizona, failed an unannounced restaurant inspection July 17. And a re-inspection July 27; and Aug. 8 and Aug. 21.So the Pima County Health Department tried a new strategy - intervention.
Sharon Browning, director of Pima County's Consumer Health and Food Safety unit, told the Tucson Citizen that Gee's is the first restaurant to go through the county's intervention program, devised in 2002, stating,
"It's not like a last resort, but it's close. We're trying to allow these people to stay open while they make significant changes, and it's a tool that's been in our toolbox, but one we'd never used until now."
The intervention period will include unannounced inspections at irregular intervals through January, at which point the restaurant could regain its regular license or have it revoked.
Post the scores
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The Orlando Sentinel argues in a forceful editorial that Florida restaurants should be posting some kind of restaurant inspection information rather than requiring would-be customers to visit a web site.Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Holly Benson says, "No one ever goes to our Web site."
The editorial says that state inspections of Central Florida restaurants found that almost one in three eateries in the past 14 months got cited for rodent- or roach-related violations.
Two in five employed poor hygienic practices, including workers not washing their hands.
And three of five restaurants scored at least 10 "critical violations" that can lead to a variety of foodborne illnesses.
The editorial further says that Ms. Benson should push the Legislature not just to require easily understandable inspections in restaurants, but to give you enough staff for three inspections per year per restaurant. Now, the department struggles to conduct just two inspections.
Push it to give you authority to impose more meaningful fines, and to give you more resources so your department can better educate operators in sanitary food preparation.
Push it to allow you to get more restaurants to do daily what most of them already, generally, are doing: serving the public well.
Post the scores. Such public displays of information help bolster overall awareness of food safety amongst staff and the public -- people routinely talk about this stuff. The interested public can handle more, not less, information about food safety.
And instead of waiting for politicians to take the lead, the best restaurants, those with nothing to hide and everything to be proud of, will go ahead and make their inspection scores available -- today.
Casey Wilkinson, guest barfblogger: Poop on your shoes...
I clicked on the headline and waited for the story to appear. I read in horror as each word confirmed my deepest fears: the entire story was absolutely true.
Apparently the worker at a Great China Buffet restaurant was using a very innovative technique to press garlic cloves: stomping them with his boots in a back alley. A passerby had noted him there with a horror similar to my own and snapped a photo.
The Rockland County Health Department was notified and quickly came for an inspection. The worker was fired for his act, and the restaurant will be re-inspected soon.
I wish I could rest easy now, but I’m afraid there may be more out there just like him: full of ignorance and disregard for the safety of our food.
Don’t eat poop, people: Wash your hands. And don’t stomp the garlic.
Not sure how this will increase produce food safety
The story says that officials believe that produced tainted with bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella, will have a harder time ending up in the hands of consumers because the dept of ag can conduct more inspections (and cut their per-inspection time down to an hour)
"The introduction of the Fresh Electronic Inspection Reporting/Resource System allows inspectors to input inspection data, such as sugar content and produce quality, into special software developed specifically for that purpose."
It's believed that by cutting down inspection time, there will be more time for more government random checks.
Maybe it will increase the visibility of inspectors on the farm, but I'm not convinced that more generic inspection is the way to go -- having people on farms help farmers reduce risk (either through extension or industry consulting -- people who know the risks, and how to manage them) seems a lot more productive to me. There is research to suggest that more restaurant inspections do not lead to a reduction of the likelihood of illnesses. Farms may be different, but I'm not sure.
I'm not versed in the Arizona Department of Ag's inspection regime, but I did a quick search of the site and didn't find any reference to inspecting for good agricultureal practices (searched "inspection" and all I got was the press release saying that they are using the new technology).
It's too hot for hell to have frozen over but ...
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Seven years after a newspaper series focused attention on restaurant inspection in Toronto, the local paper in the sleepy borough of Guelph, Ontario, 40 miles down the road, has seen fit to run a story about four local restaurants getting fined for food safety infractions.It's the first local coverage I can recall. And I lived there a long time.
In 2004 I had a student call the local health unit and ask for inspection information about a few Guelph restaurants. She was told to file a written request with the Board of Health and await a response in the mail; 4-6 weeks.
So while seemingly every jurisdiction in Canada and the U.S. was figuring out the best way to make restaurant inspection information public and meaningful -- even Jessica Simpson, exactly as pictured, left, gets it -- the city of Guelph, Canada's self-proclaimed food safety center, did what it does best -- be a bureaucrat.
What's with all the goats in restaurants?
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On this video, councilman Dennis Mobley of New Franklin, Ohio, just south of Akron, runs from a TV reporter who wants to ask questions about the councilman's dirty restaurant.Healthinspections.com reports that Mobley owns a place called Your Pizza, a popular spot in the town of 14,000 that has been cited for a lot of serious health code violations, including a goat in the pizzeria.
Quality and safety are two different things
Four students in a graduate seminar in investigative reporting at Northeastern University put together and published an impressive feature on restaurant inspection disclosure - or lack thereof -- in the Boston Globe this morning.The authors/students had fun focusing especially on so-called high-end restaurants and their many food safety failings.
"For almost a month late this spring, devotees of Tealuxe, the popular Newbury Street tea house and cafe, was closed -- for mechanical repairs, its manager, Ryan Moore, was cited as insisting in an interview Friday....
"But, according to an internal report prepared by the Boston Public Health Commission, the restaurant was shuttered because at least 21 people, including 10 employees, were exposed to the salmonella bacteria the first week of May, and of those, 11 patrons and three employees became ill."
The feature story lists dozens of restaurant infractions at various fancy eateries,
"At too many restaurants, inspectors regularly find violations that suggest that managers and owners do not take in-house food safety training seriously, especially for immigrant employees with limited English language skills. As a result, many workers do not wash their hands between tasks or wear hair restraints, do not change gloves when appropriate or even wear gloves when handling bread and other ready-to-eat items.
"Such findings may surprise most consumers, because the city's Division of Health Inspections, which is part of the Inspectional Services Department, keeps its reports buried in file drawers. An ISD website -- http://www. cityofboston.gov/isd/health/mfc/court.asp -- offers only limited and outdated information. And what the site does have is difficult to understand for anyone who is not a food safety specialist.
"When the Globe asked for the inspection reports, ISD said it would take 78 hours of staff time, plus copying costs, to produce them -- at a cost of $2,039. When the newspaper challenged the estimate, city officials recalculated the time involved, and reduced the cost to about $600.
"Also kept under wraps, available only through a formal public records request, are the identities of close to 400 food service establishments -- the Federalist included -- that have been temporarily shut down since 2002 for food safety violations.
In an interview, Thomas J. Goodfellow, the director of ISD's Division of Health Inspections, could not explain why Boston, unlike other cities, had not publicized the closings, or even posted them online. State law, Goodfellow said, does not require it."
There's just too many stinky hands.
Publicly available grading systems rapidly communicate to diners the potential risk in dining at a particular establishment and restaurants given a lower grade may be more likely to comply with health regulations in the future to prevent lost business.
More importantly, such public displays of information help bolster overall awareness of food safety amongst staff and the public -- people routinely talk about this stuff. The interested public can handle more, not less, information about food safety.
And instead of waiting for politicians to take the lead, the best restaurants, those with nothing to hide and everything to be proud of, will go ahead and make their inspection scores available -- today.
Waiter, there's a ...
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel offers these tips for safe dining out:Pick restaurants where the bathrooms have soap, toilet paper and paper towels.
Insects, such as roaches, and rodents should not be inside a restaurant.
Food should be thoroughly cooked, especially chicken and ground beef.
If you become ill after eating in a restaurant, seek medical attention and call your county health department. Save suspect restaurant food by freezing it in a clean container with a lid.
And the more information about restaurant inspections, the better.
Eat, drink and golf
Newport News, Virginia, host of the annual Jeff Schieck invitational golf and gabfest, is getting into restaurant inspection disclosure, big time.
It's the latest attempt by cities and states to provide meaningful information about dining establishments, and even more notable, newspapers themselves are hiring folks to present the information in a user-friendly manner.
Those of us who gather in Newport News every spring appreciate the additional information, and look forward to the rankings at Schieck's favorite dining spot, Golden Corral.
This is a terrible picture ...
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... but it's what Toronto's restaurant inspection disclosure system looks like -- the infamous red, yellow, green.Columbus, Ohio, has apparently decided to adopt a similar system. Barnet D. Wolf of The Columbus Dispatch reports that,
"The inspection process has received more attention since the board instituted a color-coded food-safety sign system for restaurants, markets and other retail food businesses. The signs tell consumers whether the location meets state health-code requirements.
The green sign means all standards have been met. Red means the facility has been shut down or put on probation for critical code violations.
A number of restaurant owners viewed the signs' introduction with dismay, thinking the process would be overly costly and time consuming.
After initially opposing the signs, the Central Ohio Restaurant Association has changed its mind. Gail Baker, the group's director, said the system is "fair to restaurants and will give the public a tool" to assess dining spots' safety.
Fighting public disclosure is a bad idea. Figuring out the best way to provide information is a good idea.
Sorry you're sick, how's the food?
A U.K. MP is urging hospitals to display environmental health reports on their websites, telling EDP 24, "I would be very pleased to go and look at standards. Patients have a right to know how their food is being prepared when they go into hospital. Hygiene standards must be made public via clear and accessible ratings for each institution. The worst performers should be named and shamed - while those doing well would stand as an example to drive up standards."
The comments by Liberal Democrat health spokesman and North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb followed the release of a report by the Liberal Democrats that found that nationally nearly half of all hospital kitchens and canteens in England could be failing to meet basic standards of cleanliness and hygiene.
Vermin, cockroaches and mouse droppings, medical waste on food handling equipment and poor person hygiene among catering staff were all cited as problems.
Restaurant tip: Don't scratch your butt and then prepare salad
Rebecca J. Gray Causey, a regional food safety and defense coordinator for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control could be my new personal hero.The Myrtle Beach Sun News reported on restaurant inspection today and cited Causey as doing a food inspection, when the salad bar worker stopped chopping lettuce, commenced scratching his bottom and then returned to chopping lettuce.
Causey found the eatery's manager and told him,
"Let's have a talk with Stinky Hands. He needs to know that if he has an itchy butt, he doesn't scratch it on the [salad bar] line."
Causey, shut down the salad bar 30 minutes before the eatery's opening time. All the food on the bar had to be thrown away.
On another occasion, Causey saw Stinky Hands' brother popping pimples on his chest while he was grilling meat.
Proactive postings
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While many cities grapple with the desirability of restaurant inspection disclosure, a new City of Milwaukee Web site is offering the first-of-its-kind digital system that enables visitors to review health inspection records of city restaurants, food stores and other outlets that sell food.Alderman Michael Murphy was quoted as saying "The great thing about this new Web site is that it provides timely information on the current City of Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) codes compliance of any restaurant, tavern, or food store in the city. So, if you have any questions about the cleanliness or condition of a particular city business selling food, you just go online and review the reports for yourself."
Kudos to Milwaukee for embracing disclosure.
