Fines for using a bad egg mixture

AN iconic Magnetic Island cafe has been fined $14,000 for serving tainted scrambled eggs after seven customers were struck down with salmonella poisoning.

In August last year, reports of a salmonella outbreak were investigated by Townsville Public Health Unit.

The Townsville Magistrates Court heard it was identified by health inspectors that Scallywags Cafe at Nelly Bay had been the link to the outbreak.

An inspection of the business found an egg mixture stored in the fridge that had no temperature monitoring.

The court heard the fridge’s temperature was 10C.

A second inspection of the premises at a later date located the egg mixture in the fridge stored at 9.1C.

Scallywags cafe owners Peter and Kristal Stafford admitted to health officers that they would store the egg mixture in the refrigerator for up to three days.

The court heard testing of the egg mixture as well as the bowl the mixture was stored in came back positive for salmonella.

The seven customers who were infected with the salmonella poisoning suffered from vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, chills and sweats, headaches, nausea, body aches and fatigue.

Legal representative for the Queensland Department of

Health and Safety, Jessica Bland said “it was a very serious situation”.

“One of the seven consumers was hospitalised in addition to the six others that were found to be linked to the cafe,” she said.

Ms Stafford pleaded guilty to seven charges of sell unsafe food. Mr Stafford pleaded guilty to seven charges of sell unsafe food.

The duo represented themselves with Mr Stafford telling Magistrate Viviana Keegan that after the bacteria was identified, the couple went out and bought a new $6000 refrigerator.

“Once we were made aware that the sickness was coming from our practice, we genuinely were concerned and shocked and consequently immediately acted upon that,” he said. “We had made eggs like this for eight years and no other problems had come out during that period of time.”

Ms Keegan told Mr and Ms Stafford the Food Act laws “were important”.

“Even if they weren’t hospitalised, it would have been very unpleasant contracting salmonella,” she said.

Ms Stafford and Mr Stafford were fined $7000 respectively and ordered to pay court costs of $750 respectively.

Convictions were not recorded.

The cluster of the salmonella outbreak reached from Victoria to Cairns and overseas.