Sure this may or may not fit in with the actual OSD guidelines, but.
Last week, there was a health scare at a local factory here.
This place employs 3-400 workers, so this was by no means a small incident.
The Cafeteria had served a dish of Tuna pie,
that from all accounts was hot when people had eaten it.
Within an hour of eating the fare, a large number of Staff complained of Stomach cramps and diarrhoea.
What the staff did not know was the fact that the said pie had been frozen and reheated twice, the other portion had been fed to the staff the week before, with no problems.
This is a reasonably isolated case of how poor food handling can go wrong, but the question I ask is this.
What measures are in place where you come from, to ensure a situation like that would not happen?.
Has it happened before? and how was a repeat of that prevented?.
I've had food poisoning before and I must say, it is nothing to laugh about.

Anyone keen to comment on this?.

Rules exist that weren't followed.

As for myself, I rerely eat "lunch," rather, I "munch" on something light I've either brought with, or found in a machine. Hard to get ill from a bag of chips

{Message edited to corect smilies, sorry John}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-03-2004).]

With Summer just having past you guys, you are either pretty well up with you food safety or the people you buy your food off, are well up with the trades they are supplying.
Now that Winter is hitting the decks in the US, continuous HOT food is the name of the game.
Tell me, what temperature is yours?.

Tell me,
Is the temperature of cooked food actually monitored, say where it is on display?.
Personally John I take a "Thermos" Flask to work in the Winter, provided you pre-heat the thing, you can keep food too hot to eat, for up to 5 hours.
And I'm talking a meal in a jar here, the one I have holds about a quarter of a gallon (a quart?)of soup or saveloys or noodles or if you're really hungry all 3!.
Just watch your workmates watch you eat your pink soup and pink noodles.
Tommorrow, they'll have the same!.
Us Line-Mechanics learn to do things like this, nothing like hot food in the snow.

Having worked in concessions up at basketball and football games at the local university (with my son who is 11 so he could earn money for a singing tour earlier last year), I was constantly monitoring the temperature of the hotdogs I was heating. I was required by the health inspector to heat them to 165 degrees F (if my memory serves, and which I would confirm before each game) and keep them at a minimum of 145 degrees afterwords.

We would take the leftovers home to the dog afterwords (OK, so I would throw them in the freezer and eat them myself heated in the microwave. They are good with that clear mayonase found in the bottom of the jar next to the fridge).

I had times when we would be so busy that I would have to hold off serving the dogs because they were not up to temperature yet. I even kept and used sterile alcohol wipes to clean the thermometer after each use.

I hope that others would do the same.

Shane

Many of our 'fast food' places where food is likely to sit a while have digital display thermometers in the holding bins and posted signs to tell everyone how hot they should be. One of the things the resturant inspectors check most is food temprature - both cold and hot.
I worked in a plant that made salads when I was in high school. We had a special handout we gave to people buying bulk quantities for picnics about the dangers of improper storage.

[This message has been edited by Big Jim (edited 01-11-2005).]

Big Jim,
It wasn't a lettuce, by any chance?.
Sorry, just being silly.
Seriously though, monitoring of temperatures is as important to food safety as good hygiene.
Just a little question, do you guys have refrigerated sandwich cabinets, in the US?.

I worked in several eateries growing up. Pizza, fried chicken, and buffett style. First off I do not remember the temps but the danger zone was around 50 to 120 degrees.

How do you know who the manager is? Easy its the person with the shirt pocket thermometer sticking into everything.

Temps are taken and logged at regular intervals. In some cases such as simmering sauces we had thermometers in them all the time. They had a clip thing to keep them in place. At the fried chicked place there was a special digital thermometer for the oil.

There are all sorts of rules about such things as how long food can be under the heat lamps before being thrown out and the like. Some of those rules are quality control not safety ever get a side of fries that been sitting to long?

All fridges and freezers have thermometers built in and many have overtemp alarms. Food warmers also have low temp alarms.

Even dishwashers have rules. The final rinse temp must be at least 180 degrees. We get that with a booster heater. It takes the 140 degree water from the normal water heater and makes it 190.

This stuff IS checked by food inspectors.

All food that is not served is required to be labeled with time and day. Thats so it cannot be reheated twice like the first post here stated. In fact if I remember correctly it had to be labeled with its expiration date. Varied depending on what it was.

Round here we got "Taco Trucks" they got little ovens inside with premade tacos and they drive around the job sites. They are required to have a permit and be inspected. I have heard of unpermited ones getting pulled over and getting in trouble by storing the tacos in a stryofoam cooler.

This is all off the top of my head, let me know if you have any more questions about this. Suffice it to say that food safety is taken seriously. I myself remeber throwing out food that was NOT bad but was a few degrees off. It simply is not worth the risk.