Dead flies in food places. Cooking oil in Windex bottles. Broward Presidente problems

Nov 28, 2023

Myriad handwashing issues, dead flies in places food should go and unsafe food caused the second South Florida Presidente in a week to fail state inspection.

Two days after a Presidente in North Miami got hit with "Re-Inspection Required," the worst inspection result for a supermarket from a state inspection, inspectors found that a Margate Presidente's cleanliness and food safety lacked cleanliness and food safety.

READ MORE: Flies, bad food and a "black substance" at a Presidente Supermarket

A Florida Department of Agriculture inspection of supermarkets, grocery stores, retail and wholesale bakeries, convenience stores, food processors, food distributors and food storage facilities can't shut down the establishment. But areas and equipment can be put under Stop Use Orders. Enough of those and store management might decide it can't or shouldn't open.

Inspectors Leni Zunino and Francis Odio didn't have to drop any Stop Use Orders during their April 26 visit to the store at 2450 N. State Rd. 7. But here's what they did find.

▪ In the meat department, "two Windex containers refilled with food grade mineral oil."

▪ Pots and utensils were washed, rinsed, but not sanitized, and two out of three is bad.

▪ The ice machine in the food service area had "black, moist buildup on the drain plate" and a sugar jar was "soil encrusted" as was the scoop inside the flour container.

▪ A can of condensed milk on a kitchen area shelf to be used had "a major dent" in the body of the can. Tossed.

▪ Opened genoa salami, hard salami and mortadella in the food service area had no date markings and nobody knew when they were opened. Tossed.

▪ Watermelon in the walk-in cooler that needed to be below 41 degrees was only at 50 after four hours. Garbage.

▪ Food service-area food tested and trashed for being lukewarm bacteria birthing boats were rice, plantains, kibbeah, ham and cheese empanadas, Dominican empanadas, Venezuelan empanadas, arepas, tequenos and soup.

▪ The kitchen walk-in had uncool and unsafe cooked chicken, beans and beef soup. The milk in the food on the food service area prep table measured 56 degrees. Sour cream and cod for sale out on the shelves measured 47 degrees. Also, garbage.

▪ A meat department employee came into the "service area without changing gloves, touched the trash can and continued to engage in food service."

▪ Another meat department worker didn't wash hands when going into the food service area. In the food service area, an employee touched body parts, then money, then started working with food without washing hands.

("Fecal bacteria and other pathogens may have hitched a ride from someone's hands, nose or apron onto our cash. And yeast or mold might have taken hold, too," Scientific American said in a 2017 article titled "Dirty Money.")

▪ A deli area worker served food, touched money, put hand sanitizer on the gloves and kept working with food.

READ MORE: A state inspector found moldy fruit and mouse dung at a Miami Walmart grocery

▪ A produce area handwashing sink didn't have hot water, and the store was given 30 days to rectify that problem. The hot water wasn't turned on for handwashing sinks in the deli area and meat department. The store did rectify that problem by just turning on the hot water. No notation was made concerning why it was off in the first place.

▪ The kitchen area handwashing sink didn't have soap. The meat department handwashing sink didn't have soap. The handwashing sink at the meat department service counter didn't have soap. A deli area handwashing sink one-upped each of those by lacking soap and paper towels.

▪ In the meat department cold room, there was a "dead fly on the cutting board where meat is processed" and "two dead flies on a cart's tray, where packaged meat is stored."