David J. Neal
dneal@MiamiHerald.com
Not every 7-Eleven lives down the common jokes about how safe the food items, especially those hot dogs, are to eat and how seriously the establishment takes cleanliness.
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But a Davie store sure did during a March 8 state inspection.
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Florida Department of Agriculture Inspectors Sonia Razac and Novelette Williams didn’t shut down the store at 8630 W. State Rd. 84 because, unlike Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspections of restaurants, a failed inspection doesn’t close an establishment. Ag Department inspectors can put Stop-Use Orders on equipment or areas of grocers, retail bakeries, food distributors, food processors and food storage facilities.
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And the inspectors dropped one Stop-Use Order, as they sifted through numerous problems.
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READ MORE: This expanding grocery chain has a different focus. What to expect in Florida
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In the walk-in cooler, both the walls and the shelves were “soiled with a mold-like substance.”
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The backroom handwashing sink had hot water, apparently, but didn’t have any soap or paper towels. Both tools of cleanliness can be found on the retail shelves of most 7-Elevens.
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Then again, there were “containers with food uncovered in the reach-in cooler.”
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Back to the backroom, where pizza boxes and boxes with carry out containers were stored on the floor in front of the three-compartment sink. Food storage materials were right in the splash area of a sink where washing, rinsing and sanitizing occurs.
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“Employees engaged in food preparation with no hair restraint.”
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In the food processing area, the inspectors saw a “food employee reuse single use gloves.”
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“Observed single use stirs stored unwrapped and unprotected by coffee station.” So, when you stirred cream and/or sugar into your coffee, you could also have been stirring in someone else’s germs.
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The “Winter Wonderland” cocoa machine was “soiled with food debris.”
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Food kept in cold storage needs to be kept under 41 degrees. If prepared and kept in hot storage, it needs to be kept above 135 degrees. Anything in between, that food is a Bad Bacteria Bus that you’re riding into the foodborne illness danger zone.
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That’s why the self-service milk and creamer dispenser got slapped with a Stop-Use Order. It wasn’t keeping the milk and creamer under 41 degrees, a particularly potentially nasty problem for milk products.
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Whole milk and half and half in the retail area for purchase by customers got tossed when they measured 58 to 60 degrees. Joining the milk in the trash were hot dogs, chicken taquitos and chicken teriyaki from the food processing area and the same items in the walk-in cooler.
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Out in the retail area, the pizza, chicken wings, beef patties and chicken kabob in the hot case — or, in the case of this case, not hot enough — measured 107 degrees to 120 degrees. The chicken taquitos and the hot dogs on the roller grill measured 108 to 115 degrees.
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Management was given a chance to warm those up to a proper temperature.
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Desde 1989, el dominio de David J. Neal en el Miami Herald se ha expandido para incluir escritos sobre Panthers (NHL y FIU), Dolphins, animación de la vieja escuela, seguridad alimentaria, fraude, abogados traviesos, malos médicos y todo tipo de noticias de última hora. Bebe coladas enteras. No trabaja el día de la carrera de las 500 Millas de Indianápolis.
Nuestra mision es complacer a todos nuestros usuarios sean clientes, lectores o simplemente visitantes, la experiencia merece la pena.
