Bugs in pasta, unsafe chicken and beef, exposed fish (still) at a Miami supermarket

David J. Neal
·3 min read
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Chicken, turkey, beef, fish, pork — even pigs feet — got tossed as being unsafe for sale after state inspectors visited a North Miami-Dade supermarket.

Also meeting the trash after Florida Department of Agriculture inspectors checked out Key Food Supermarket, 10400 NW Seventh Ave.: bug-contaminated pasta.

The inspection says this Key Food Supermarket is owned by 10400 Foodcorp., which corporation state records say is run by president Juan Diaz of Coral Springs; vice president Raifiz Vargas of Weston; and secretary Alejandro Paulino of Boca Raton.

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Key Food Supermarket, 10400 NW Seventh Ave., had inspection problems.
Key Food Supermarket, 10400 NW Seventh Ave., had inspection problems.

Ag Department inspectors check out sellers of packaged food, from supermarkets down to Bass Pro Shops, as well as retail and wholesale bakeries, food distributors, food processors and food storage facilities. They can’t close down an establishment if a place gets the worst inspection rating of “Re-Inspection Required.” They can, however, slap Stop Sales on products and Stop Use Orders on equipment and areas.

And, Tuesday, Inspectors James Zheng and Pedro Llanos threw around Stop Sales like Dan Marino used to throw footballs. Here’s just some of what they found.

▪ In the backroom, they saw “cardboard used as shelf liner across the entire backroom.” A worse use of cardboard was in the produce area, where it was “used as a surface to cut vegetables on the prep table.” Too cheap to spend a few bucks on a cutting board?

▪ Still in the produce area, a knife was stored between the wall and the electrical pipe between prep table uses.

▪ There was no hot water at the handwashing sink in the produce area, making it rather tough to wash hands properly.

▪ The inspectors “observed two bunkers displaying raw whole fish in ice unprotected” out in the retail area. This fish was free to be sneezed on, spit on, touched with dirty hands that have been who knows where touching who knows what or who knows who.

This would still be the case Thursday with fish unprotected in one place and fish heads unprotected right next to it.

READ MORE: Why did inspectors make a Miami Downstairs store throw out coffee and croquetas?

▪ The backroom walk-in dairy cooler had a few problems, including “dust on the condenser unit grills.”

▪ Proper food safety says food kept in coolers must be at or below 41 degrees. If prepared and kept in a hot holding unit, they have to be at 135 degrees or above. Anything in between can turn the food into bacteria motherships breeding and carrying foodborne diseases.

The salted fish in the reach-in cooler checked in at 46 degrees. In the dairy walk-in cooler, raw pork, raw turkey, raw pork chunks, raw chicken, raw beef, raw ground beef and raw shrimp measured from 47 to 71 degrees. The pigs feet in the same walk-in was a balmy 71 degrees.

All of that got hit with Stop Sales and thrown in the garbage.

▪ What about the food being served? “Food items including beef pasta, yucca, yams, mashed plantains & fried cheese found between 82 and 124 degrees when checked with a calibrated probe thermometer.” Stop Sale, Stop Sale, Stop Sale, Stop Sale, Stop Sale. All of that found the garbage.

▪ A Stop Sale hit a pasta package after the inspectors saw a “small black insect inside a pasta package in aisle No. 4.” Bugs don’t travel alone.