Breeding grounds for pathogens

Germs are common in supermarkets, but the state rarely tests for them

Chances are good that the pathogen that closed Penn Dutch is alive and lurking where you buy your food.

Chances are even better that state food safety inspectors will never enter your favorite supermarket and conduct the same type of environmental sample testing that forced Penn Dutch to close its doors for good last month.

While state inspectors scrutinize sanitation practices at hundreds of supermarkets each year, the absence of routine pathogen testing means we all have a responsibility to watch out for infectious conditions at the stores where we shop.

And those conditions are routinely found, including mold and mildew in meat cutting rooms, live birds in retail areas, employees who don’t wash their hands and meat slicers encrusted with old food.

Listeria monocytogenes — the type that led to Penn Dutch’s closing — can be particularly frustrating for officials to find and eradicate.

Unlike salmonella and e. coli, listeria can go undetected for weeks. Healthy adults may suffer only mild food poisoning symptoms such as diarrhea or an upset stomach and never realize they had it.

But the bacteria can cause a serious infection called listeriosis in vulnerable people, including the elderly, infants and children, pregnant women and people with HIV/AIDS.

According to the federal

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1,600 people contract listeriosis every year, and about 260 die.

Lack of testing

The Florida Division of Food Safety, however, doesn’t have the money or manpower to swab for listeria at every, or even many, supermarkets, state officials say.

Two sets of environmental pathogen tests taken at the Hollywood and Margate Penn Dutch stores in the spring and fall were the only such tests conducted in Florida so far in 2019, according to Dr. Matthew Curran, the state’s director of food safety.

In addition to supermarkets, the division inspects manufacturing, wholesale and distribution facilities for listeria and other known contaminants, such as salmonella and e. coli.

In 2017, it inspected 34,096 food establishments and dairy facilities statewide, according to the most recent annual report of the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees the food safety division.

Of the 15,094 food and environmental samples tested for various types of contamination that year, about 96% were “in compliance,” the report said. That means about 600 samples tested positive.

Food products are tested randomly at supermarkets, and in response to consumer complaints.

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is requesting funding to hire 80 additional inspectors in 2020, which would enable more frequent sanitation inspections and pathogen testing, spokesman Franco Ripple said.

Currently, the state orders swab tests for listeria in supermarkets only a “handful” of times a year when food samples test positive and conditions inside a store point to a need for further testing, Curran said.

That’s what happened at Penn Dutch. Positive test results for chicken salad and turkey breasts collected from Penn Dutch’s Hollywood store on Feb. 11 triggered the series of environmental tests that shut down the company in September.

Those first tests led inspectors to find water dripping through holes in the roof and ceiling onto uncovered meats, which led to more tests of food in Hollywood and Margate, more positive results, and environmental tests of both stores that came back positive.

Despite what Penn Dutch’s president Greg Salsburg said was a complete refocus of how the company’s employees approached sanitation and cleanup, tests of deli food at the Hollywood store again tested positive in late August and inspectors found leaking water throughout a backroom walkway, indicating the roof leak from March had not been fully repaired.

The Hollywood store was quietly closed “temporarily,” and the Margate store continued to operate until environmental samples again tested positive for listeria there as well. The second round proved to be the knockout punch, prompting the owners to call it quits for good after 45 years.

Asked to identify their most recent listeria findings in Florida prior to Penn Dutch, division officials provided reports of positive tests of deli salads at Latino’s Supermarket in Brandon in April 2018. Those results prompted swab tests of the entire store, which came back negative.

In South Florida, a hamand-cheese spread tested positive for listeria in May 2017 at a Miami Sedano’s. Inspectors ordered the supermarket to shut down its bakery, where the spread was made, until another inspection verified that its table, mixers and utensils were sanitized, inspection records show.

Listeria was also found in a shipment of cajun style shrimp sold at the Margate Penn Dutch location in February 2015.

Unlike the contamination found this year in food processed on-site, that product came from an outside vendor.

Conditions ripe

While full environmental testing is rare — it requires teams of inspectors to spend all day collecting and preserving more than 100 samples swabbed throughout a store — reports show that inspectors frequently find conditions that health safety experts say promote growth of listeria and other pathogens: A bandsaw and tenderizer used for seafood items found in use and encrusted with old food residue at a Miami supermarket in March 2018. Four live birds observed flying around the deli and bakery areas of a supermarket in North Lauderdale in October 2018.

Condensation from an unclean hose dripping onto uncovered fish in the seafood service area of a Hialeah supermarket in May 2017. In the same store’s meat processing room, the floor was cracked and pitted, its rough surfaces providing an ideal pathogen breeding area that’s nearly impossible to clean.

At a Miami supermarket, “black and yellow mold-like grime” was found encrusted on the interior housing of an ice machine, while old cake mix and icing residue were discovered on a bakery mixer in January 2018.

Records of follow-up Inspections show all of the stores corrected the violations.

More commonly found in dozens of recent inspection reports reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel were violations that might seem minor but signify lax approaches to supermarkets’ sanitation responsibilities, particularly by employees preparing ready-to-eat foods such as sliced cold cuts and cheeses, seafood salads, dips and spreads.

These can include workers not washing their hands before handling food or not changing their gloves between working with different types of meats, storing one type of raw meat on a metal shelf over another shelf with another type of meat, failing to repair leaking condensers in walk-in freezers, and failing to ensure raw meats are stored at 41 degrees or below and cooked foods are kept at 135 degrees and above.

Listeria common in delis

Poor sanitation and food handling allows listeria to gain a foothold in stores, particularly older stores with missing grout, loose wall coverings, or drains that don’t properly work, according to a 2015 study by Purdue University’s Department of Food Science.

Stores that succeed in keeping listeria away typically have no leaks.

They also maintain smooth food preparation surfaces — with no grout, pitting, rust or flaking paint — for easy elimination of moisture.

The Purdue study tested 30 delicatessens in national supermarket chains in three states.

Researchers swabbed surfaces that frequently came into contact with food, such as counters and meat slicing machines, as well as surfaces not touched by food.

Over six months of testing, listeria was found in about 70% of the stores, the study found. Of all samples, 9.5% came back positive for listeria. In some delis, 35% of all samples collected over the six months tested positive.

Most of the positive samples were collected from surfaces that usually do not come into contact with food, such as drains, floors and squeegees, the study said.

Similar results were noted among the 13 samples that tested positive out of 110 samples taken at the Margate Penn Dutch location in September.

While the pathogen was found on a seafood cutting board, retail display cooler and fish cooler, it was also found in drains in rooms where meats and seafood were processed, on a dustpan in a hallway, on the wheel of a dolly, and on a scale used to weigh shipping pallets.

Listeria is no less hazardous to consumers if found in a store’s drains and on dustpans, said Haley Oliver, assistant professor of food science at Purdue University and lead researcher of the 2015 study.

If it’s found in floor drains, that means it was flushed there from elsewhere in the store, she said. Once in a drain, listeria can attach itself to workers’ shoes and be tracked to other areas of the store. And drains are very difficult to clean, she said. “Food particulates land in these environments, and they support growth of listeria.”

The risk of the meat slicer

Another environment where pathogens can thrive is the commercial meat slicer. Older models designed with silicon seals have been traced to four food-borne illness outbreaks in the U.S. and Canada.

Investigators found that the silicon seals wear out over time, exposing hairlinesized openings that meat particles push through over weeks, months and years. Their design makes them impossible to clean.

A 2008 listeriosis outbreak in Canada that sickened 57 people and killed 22 was traced to contaminated slicers used by Torontobased Maple Leaf Foods. In 2010, a salmonella outbreak in Rhode Island was blamed on contaminated tomato residue that went through a deli slicer.

Since those outbreaks, most of the nation’s major retailers have switched to a new slicer design developed to eliminate hiding places for contamination.

But Dr. Ernest Julian, chief of Rhode Island’s Office of Food Protection, warned in an interview that many of the old-style slicers jettisoned by large supermarket chains have found their way to smaller chains and momand-pop stores. “The problem is, some of this equipment can be out there for 50 years,” he said.