Cheese with mold, filthy slicers and bird excrement at the Fresh Market in Miami Beach
Moldy food, flying insects and animals out of control and unclean equipment caused The Fresh Market in South Beach to fail its most recent Florida Dept. of Agriculture posted inspection.
Two out of three ain’t bad unless you’re talking failed inspections and that Fresh Market, 1800 West Ave., has failed two of its last three inspections. In addition to Nov. 8, it failed an Aug. 17, 2020 inspection, then passed an Aug. 31, 2020 inspection.
The first violation detailed by Inspector Simeon Carrero is “Several pieces of in-house cut cheese with some white mold growing on the cheese inside a cold deli case.” That cheese got trashed.
Pigeons proliferate on the outside patio, sometimes hanging out on tables where people eat. That patio’s now closed for what a sign says are “scheduled maintenance and upgrades.”
Perhaps that has something to do with Inspector Carrero observing “customer sitting area with no overhead protection, inadequate.” Also, “bird excrement throughout outside seating and servicing area.”
While there was a “presence of birds and not controlling them” outside, the back room had “several glue boards with dead flies and roaches not being removed.”
In the bakery and produce areas, the inspector saw “several flies in the processing areas.”
Slicers and grinders are supposed to be cleaned and sanitized every four hours. In the produce department, the pineapple cutting machine had “old soil build up.” The large grinder in the meat department hadn’t been washed “for over 24 hours.” In the deli department, an industrial can opener had “old soil build up” because it hadn’t been cleaned in over four hours.”
At the popular hot counter, where food should be kept at or above 135 degrees to keep them from being bacteria farms, salmon steaks, pork roast and mashed potatoes that had been there more than two hours ranged from 116 degrees to 123 degrees.
In a meat department display case, the raw chicken sausage was touching the raw pork sausage. All of that sausage followed the moldy cheese into the garbage.
During this inspection, apparently the store remained free of the dogs that Sunset Harbour area residents regularly bring into the store.
