A Miami area supermarket trashed 600 pounds of seafood and 1,300 pounds of meat
Over 2,000 pounds of food — that’s right, one ton — got thrown out as unfit for sale, and all food processing was halted at a North Miami grocer after a state inspection.
Customers still clogged the aisles Wednesday at Delma’s Supermarket, 876 NE 125th St., despite the issues from Friday’s visit by Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspectors.
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Those inspectors don’t have the shutdown powers that Department of Business & Professional Regulation inspectors have over restaurants. But they can drop Stop Sale and Stop Use Orders, and Pedro Llanos and Kaitlyn Loeb dropped them on Delma’s on Friday like the summer skies drop rain.
Not only was there “heavy soil and debris accumulated” on the outside of the ice machine, but a “buildup of black and brown mold-like substances on the interior ledges and walls.” That’s a Stop Use Order on the ice machine for “unsanitary” food contact surfaces.
The inspectors ruled that meant the ice in a reach-in cooler with seafood wasn’t clean and dropped Stop Sales on 600 pounds of seafood, including “whole fish, salmon, raw shrimp, and conch that are displayed inside the cooler in contact with contaminated ice.”
The reach-in cooler door “separated from the unit when it was moved.” Stop Use on that reach-in cooler.
The processing area’s “meat reach-in cooler’s condenser unit pipes were leaking water onto food below.” That led to a Stop Use on the meat reach-in cooler and Stop Sales on 1,386 pounds of raw meat such as turkey (necks, drums, and wings), chicken (drums, gizzard, wings), beef (ground beef, knuckles, feet), pork (chops and neck), oxtail and goat.
The customer-accessible reach-in cooler had boneless salt cod, salted pollock fillet, smoked split herring, split salted mackerel, and pollock. Though in the cooler, none measured 41 degrees or under. That counts as temperature abuse. Stop Sales on all.
Under a food prep table in front of the three-compartment sink sat salted smoked herring fillets and bone-in salted hake that measured 58 to 60 degrees. Stop Sales on those, too.
“Unable to verify the source of prepackaged food items displayed at retail aisles including cookies, bread, cake, and pikliz.” Stop Sales sent all to the garbage.
“Numerous small, flying insects” were spotted around the produce area and prep tables and three-compartment sink in the processing area.
“Food establishment is operating without a valid food permit.”
An in-use knife not only had “old food debris” but was being “stored between the table and wall between uses.”
A live roach on a broom next to the handwash sink got a Stop Use Order put on “all open food processing” and “all food equipment and utensils.”
The “shelf under the seafood, poultry and meat display cases in the processing area was found with old food debris accumulation.”
In the backroom, “soil and old food debris were on shelves storing food items next to the ice machine.”
Out in the retail reach-in coolers, there was a “buildup of debris found on shelves displaying butter, eggs and vegetables.”
The walk-in cooler in the backroom had a leaky pipe. The water heater was “unable to provide hot water to all the sinks in the food establishment,” but got replaced during the inspection.
The door to the unisex employee restroom wasn’t kept closed during the inspection, and the door “opens next to a produce prep table and near a table band saw.” This violates the separation of toilet and food.
Delma’s “has 90 days to correct the violation of the restroom door opening into processing area,” the inspection said. “Failure to make corrections within the 90 days will result in all food service near the restroom in question to be placed on a Stop Use Order.”
In the food processing area, the inspectors saw an “employee use the same single-use gloves to pack meats, operate the digital scale and pack meats again.”
Also, a food employee wasn’t “wearing an effective hair restraint while working in an area with open food.”
Two wet wiping cloths, instead of being in sanitizer solution when not in use, sat on prep tables.
A cutting board on a prep table was so “deeply soiled and scored” that it got hit with a Stop Use Order, putting it in the garbage with all that food.
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 12:07 PM.
