Restaurant inspection update: Moldy school cafeteria cheese, ‘Not For Sale’ beef and improperly imported fish
State, city and county food inspectors have cited Iowa restaurants and stores for hundreds of food-safety violations this past month, including moldy taco meat, beef marked “Not For Sale,” long-expired milk, and unskilled workers preparing sushi that failed to meet minimum safety standards.
One Des Moines food store was found to be importing fish directly from Thailand, which meant that none of it went through the usual process of being inspected and certified as safe. At the same store, whole chickens from an unknown, unlabeled source were being sold to the public.
At an Iowa school where moldy cheese was found, cafeteria workers weren’t date-marking the food. At another school, there was no certified food protection manager on staff and food was routinely kept at room temperature and then thrown away rather than being refrigerated and preserved.
The findings are reported by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, which handles food-establishment inspections at the state level. Listed below are some of the more serious findings that stem from inspections at Iowa restaurants, stores, schools, hospitals and other businesses over the past four weeks.
The state inspections department reminds the public that their reports are a “snapshot” in time, and violations are often corrected on the spot before the inspector leaves the establishment. For a more complete list of all inspections, along with additional details on each of the inspections listed below, visit the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals’ website.
Back Berner Bar & Grill, 607 E. Marengo Road, Tiffin – During a Nov. 21 visit, a Johnson County inspector cited the establishment for having no sanitizer on the premises and for using a non-continuous method of cooking chicken wings that had not been approved by the county. In addition, several house-made sauces were found to have been prepared more than a week prior and were outdated. This was…
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