Pork touching mold at a Presidente, a Hialeah bakery with roaches among Gross Grocers
As with restaurants, state of Florida inspectors prefer supermarkets and grocery stores be free of roaches, rodents and mold (unless you’re talking molds for bundt cake, especially the yellow bundt cake with white icing).
Our five South Florida Gross Grocers fell short of that standard and a few other basics of places that sell or handle food.
Unlike restaurants, a grocer isn’t closed instantly upon failing inspection. Part of a store can be put under a Stop Use Order, however. Enough parts get put under a Stop Use Order and it’s not worth being open.
What follows comes from Florida Department of Agriculture inspection of supermarkets, grocery stores, caterers, food distributors and food processors. If you have a complaint about a place, don’t email us. Go to the Ag Department’s website and file a complaint.
We don’t control who gets inspected or how strictly. We report without passion or prejudice, but with humor on BOGO.
And we go in alphabetical order:
County Catering, 8110 Monetary Dr., Riviera Beach: For most folks, the lack of temperature monitoring records pales next to “multiple rodent excreta were observed on the floor next to the metal storage shelves in the warehouse.”
No surprise because the “bay door was observed open with no barrier to prevent pests from entering the establishment.”
La Nueva Fe Bakery, 2975 W. Fourth Ave., Hialeah: This seems like a perfect “Which Bothers You More?”
In the food service area, Inspector Jose Pavon saw “food employees performing multiple tasks, but not washing hands before working with open foods.”
Or, in the food processing area, “multiple roaches crawling throughout, on the floor and prep tables while employees were processing open foods” and “multiple dead roaches throughout the establishment and under prep table shelves, where boxes of food and baking pans were held.”
A Stop Use Order crashed down on all processing areas, receiving areas and equipment until the re-inspection, which will occur before Oct. 27.
Presidente Supermarket, 6406 Lake Worth Rd., Greenacres: The ice in the ice machine was “adulterated with soda and debris.”
But that was better than what was happening back in the meat cold room.
“Raw pork in contact with mold-like residue covered air curtains.”
The mold later was described as “pink.” The curtains also had food residue.
Also suffering from old food residue buildup were the meat service area slicers of meat and seafood.
Still in the meat cold room, nozzles and paper in the handwashing sink obstructed any use, and there wasn’t any soap or hand drying device anyway (so, filthy hands handling mold-seasoned pork...).
T Grocery, 2121 N. Tamarind Ave., West Palm Beach: No soap in a unisex restroom used by employees and customers.
Prepackaged sausages in a retail reach-in cooler were described as “discolored” and looking spoiled.
Stop Use Orders came down on the water in this joint, as it didn’t come from an approved source, and no proof they were using proper sewage disposal.
Wiles Lyons, 1301 Hypoluxo Rd., Lantana: This place has been open since August without a valid food permit, an approved source of their drinking water or sewage handled by an approved sewage system.
Other than that, everything’s hunky dory.
