Dirty gloves grabbing bread, bare arms in dough, black mold at Hialeah bakery
Dirty gloves shouldn’t be handling bread, bare arms shouldn’t be shoved into dough — and those aren’t the only things a state inspector saw at a Hialeah bakery.
A Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspector will be returning to Mister Pan Bakery, 565 W. 27th St., on June 16 for a re-inspection.
Mister Pan isn’t the kind of bakery you swing by for a pastelito, empanada and colada in the morning, but rather a wholesale bakery that makes the pastelitos and empanadas sold at gas stations, bodegas and some supermarkets. State records show Harold Mir as Mister Pan’s registered agent and lone officer.
Inspector Jose Lares didn’t use a Stop Use Order or Stop Sale Order during Mister Pan’s first full inspection since June 5, 2023 despite what he recorded seeing:
▪ “Employees were packaging and touching frozen raw bread while wearing unclean cloth gloves to protect their hands from the cold.”
▪ Lares “observed an employee inserting his bare hands and arms in the raw dough,” putting the dough at threat of contamination from the hands and arms.
▪ “Employees were manipulating dough and working in the manufacturing of raw bread without beard covers.”
▪ An “open box of exposed raw bread was stored directly on the floor of a blast freezer.”
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▪ Inside a walk-in cooler, blower unit fans and the ceiling were marred with “excessive dust and dirt and what appear to be black mold.” The cooler holds were “open and exposed uncovered dough.”
▪ The air grilles in the processing area ceiling and “throughout the facility” had “excessive dust and dirt.”
▪ In a freezer with finished foods and a dough processing area, “water leaked from the ceiling into a plastic drum sitting on the floor. The water appeared to be rain water that was coming in through the ceiling joints.” But, according to the inspector, no foods were harmed.
▪ A metal table used to take dough from mixer to dough breaker was decorated with “old food residue in the corners and seams area.” Also, the baking trays were “heavily soiled” and “the dough conveyor belt is not cleaned as frequently as necessary to protect against the contamination of food.” The same was said of the dough breaker and the dividers in the processing area.
▪ “There are no employee training records at the facility that show employees have been trained in the principles of food safety, employee hygiene, and employee health.”
▪ There also wasn’t any proof the facility was registered with the FDA.
