Dead rodent found in room connected to kitchen of Cork business during inspection

TWO Cork companies were among ten businesses served with enforcement orders by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) in February.

Today, the FSAI announced that five Closure Orders were served under the FSAI Act, 1998, in February including on the Cork Oriental Supermarket Ltd, at 13 Daltons Avenue, Cork.

The company secretary of Cork Oriental Supermarket Limited was served with the FSAI Order on February 10. The area to be closed was the kitchen and the kitchen storage area.

An inspector found that “the food business was not kept clean and maintained in good repair and good condition".

“Rodent droppings were noted at wall to floor junctions in the kitchen and storage room connected to the kitchen. Rodent droppings were noted on food containers in the storage room connected to the kitchen.

“One dead rodent was found in the room connected to the kitchen. Due to the evidence noted, adequate pest control procedures were not in place,” stated the inspector.

“Due to the evidence noted above, there is or is likely to be a grave and immediate danger to public health. The above conditions can lead to a serious risk of food being contaminated with pathogenic bacteria likely to render the food unfit for human consumption, injurious to health or contaminated in such a way that it would be unreasonable to expect it to be consumed in that state,” added the inspector.

'SERIOUS RISK TO PUBLIC HEALTH'

Meanwhile, one Prohibition Order was served under the FSAI Act, 1998, on Monica Buckley of the Fish Seafood Deli Ltd, of Unit 6/7, Carbery, Enterprise Park, Skibbereen, Cork. The order was made on February 20 by the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority.

The inspector made the order being of the opinion that the distribution or sale of the foods would likely involve a “serious risk to public health”.

The products ordered to be withdrawn and destroyed included 29 boxes of out-of-date finished products from the Fresh Seafoods Deli, two “unrecorded fish”, Dory and Turbot, lemon sole, along with 15 crates of “unlabelled smoked salmon in 1 kg packages”.

Prohibited foods included four trays of Razor Clams with no labels, two blue crates of Indian prawns in bags with no labels, two blue crates of “unrecorded unlabelled loose frozen prawns”, one box of unlabelled prawns, unlabelled large prawn tails, 22 boxes of out-of-date Hake, and “products made from the accounted 16 boxes of hake”.

The inspector noted that the traceability for the hake “cannot be ascertained and the hake was unfit for human consumption as it was passed its use by date and decomposing at the time of the inspection.” 

This was in violation of the traceability requirements as established by the EU safe food requirements. Other finished products and fishery products were deemed “unfit for human consumption” or in violation of labelling requirements under EU regulations.