Cobweb on blender among problems at Hialeah bakery that serves local restaurants

If you ate at a local restaurant or food truck, it’s possible the rolls or rolls came from Bernardino’s Bakery in Hialeah, where a state inspector found poor washing habits among other problems hands, unsanitary food handling and lack of pest control. .

An example from September 6: “48 exposed hot dog buns stored directly on top of a very dirty chest freezer in the processing area…”

Wholesale bakeries are among the establishments inspected by the Florida Department of Agriculture. Unlike restaurants, which are inspected by another agency, a failed inspection results in a “reinspection required” but does not automatically close the establishment. An inspector can hit areas and equipment with stop-use orders. There are enough of them and a business might decide they shouldn’t or can’t open.

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Inspector Zuleima Chow inundated Bernardino with no-use orders – and detailed descriptions of violations – during the September 6 visit. She lifted most of the banning orders during Monday’s re-visit.

Here is what Inspector Chow saw during the initial inspection:

▪ “No labels for packaged bread (hamburger buns, hot dog buns, hoagie buns) and fried plantains sold in bulk to local restaurants and food trucks for further processing, as required by the Code of Federal Regulations .”

▪ An “employee handling hamburger buns with their bare hands and wrapping them in plastic bags in the processing area when the only sink in the processing area has no soap, paper towels or hand sanitizer” . In an attempt to remedy the situation, “the employee then washed his hands in the three-compartment sink with detergent, dried his hands with a cloth and put on new gloves.”

▪ The same person, a little later, drank from the bottle “while wrapping exposed hot dog buns in plastic bags, without washing his hands after drinking and without putting on new gloves, even though his hands could be soiled or contaminated. Four hamburger buns and six hot dog buns were destroyed.

▪ As for the handwashing sink in the processing area where ready-to-eat bread was handled, there was no soap, paper towels, or hand sanitizer.

▪ “Walls throughout the facility with flour, grease and/or soiled residue. In addition, the ceiling of the test room has peeling paint. But the oven contained no food, at least upon inspection.

▪ The cold room evaporator drain line discharged into a trash bin next to where the dough and ready-to-eat loaves were stored. The facility was “not constructed to prevent dripping or condensation from appliances, ducts and pipes from contaminating food.” However, the inspector found that no food had been contaminated.

▪ The front roller door leading to dry storage and the rear exit door near the processing area “had large gaps underneath”, which meant “no adequate protection was provided against pest entry” .

▪ On Bernardino’s east wall, in the dry storage area, processing area and cooking area, “several cockroach wings were observed.” Inspector Crow noted that “no measures are taken to exclude pests from manufacturing, processing, packaging and holding areas. No pest control records are available.

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▪ Clean knives used to cut buns in half were no longer clean after being “stored directly between a water pipe and a dirty wall above the three-compartment sink.”

As for why Chow punched Bernardino with a fist of five stop-use orders – one cutting equipment, one dough mixer, one dough baller, two sheeters and three dough bowl mixers:

▪ The processing equipment used to make Bernardino’s main product, bread, was “encrusted with dough and heavy grease buildup in all three mixers (heads, guards, spiral hooks and bowls), divider (knife ), the two rolling mills, a dough rounder and a kneader.

▪ Additionally, the baking trays, rolling carts, carts and shelf under the processing table were “encrusted with grease and old food residue, not cleaned as and as often as necessary to protect against… contamination of food, food contact. food packaging surfaces and materials.

▪ The “ice maker and chest freezer door seals are soiled…top of chest freezer door, tri-compartment sink, hand basin sink, and paper towel dispenser were very dirty with grease. »

▪ “Additionally, the plastic curtains that lead to the testing room contain mold-like substances on the lower half of the plastic curtains. A spider web is also observed on one of the blender guards.

▪ “We observed 48 exposed hot dog buns stored directly on top of a very dirty chest freezer in the processing area, prepared for packaging in plastic bags…”