An inspector found green mold in beef and unsafe pastelitos at a Broward grocery store
Food kept at bacteria-building temperatures, cooked beef with mold, and hand-washing deficiencies were found by a state inspectors when they stopped by a Margate grocery store last week.
Florida Department of Agriculture inspectors Terry Rainey and Ashley Montanez Bradshaw will visit International Supermarket, 6091 W. Atlantic Blvd., again on or before Oct. 31 to see if there’s improvement on what they saw Oct. 17.
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State records say International Supermarket is owned by Hernandez Food Corp., which is run by company president Jerry Hernandez out of his 5-bedroom, 3 1/2-bathroom Weston home.
▪ Presumably Hernandez’s home has hot water, which his store’s kitchen and food processing area handwash sinks didn’t have when the inspectors came. The food processing area handwash sink also lacked paper towels and soap.
▪ A kitchen food employee “did not wash hands after leaving the area and returning to the kitchen.”
▪ In the kitchen, raw beef was touching ready-to-eat prosciutto in the reach-in cooler. Food that must be cooked can’t have contact with food that’s ready to pop in your mouth.
▪ The most eye-catching beef problem in the kitchen could be found in the walk-in cooler where a pot of cooked beef had a “green mold-like substance.”
▪ That beef got a Stop Sale Order. So did the chimichurri sauce in the kitchen that measured 68 degrees, firmly in the danger zone between 41 degrees (under which cold-stored food should be kept) and 135 degrees (above which food in hot holding should measure).
▪ Still in the kitchen and in the temperature danger zone, the inspectors found bread pudding, cheese pastelitos, and guava and cheese pastelitos with a temperatures of 62 to 131 degrees. Stop Sale Orders all around.
▪ Also getting smashed with Stop Sales were eight packs of hot dogs for sale but with the “hermetic seal damaged.”
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▪ In the meat department, the meat grinder that hadn’t been used since the previous day still had a “build up of food residue.”
▪ “A direct connection exists between the sewage system and a drain originating from equipment in which food, portable equipment, or utensils are placed.” The equipment was the three-compartment sink and an indirect connection is required to prevent sewage from getting into the sink if there’s a backup.
