State food inspectors on
guard against health hazardsRats, roaches, mold — nothing escapes food inspector’s sharp eyes
By SHERRY HALBROOK
Whether you’re buying enough groceries to last a week, or a quick doughnut and coffee to eat on your way in to work, you want to know that the food you buy is safe to eat.
You are trusting the efforts of a small but vigilant army of food inspectors for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
PEF member Evelyn Fuentes is one of just six inspectors who ride herd on a whole lot more than fresh beef in hundreds of food processing, wholesaling, transporting and retailing establishments all over mid- and lower Manhattan.
“We are the eyes of the department, we are always looking,” Fuentes says.
What those sharp eyes see sometimes is sickening and scary. But so long as they see it first, you don’t have to worry about it making you sick.
“We inspect supermarkets, convenience stores, meat markets, fish markets, live-poultry markets, delis, bakeries, gourmet food stores, health food stores, candy and nut shops, fruit and vegetable stands, all kinds of food processors and much more,” says Fuentes, who has been on the job for 11 years. “We even inspect the trucks that haul the food.”
It takes a lot of expertise, but Fuentes, who studied agronomy at SUNY Farmingdale, says the Department of Agriculture and Markets makes sure its inspectors are well trained.
Good enough to eat?
What she is looking for boils down to three main things — cleanliness, freshness, and proper temperatures.
It sounds simple enough, but germs or dangerous chemicals can hide almost anywhere.
“We check everything,” she says, “even the boiler room.”
And that’s a good thing, because rats or mice keeping warm and cozy in the boiler room get hungry just like you. Care to guess where they go to look for their lunch?
What you see when you walk in the front door, she says, may be very different than what you would see if you could open the door that says “Employees Only.”
“Sometimes the outside is beautiful, but then you go into the back and it’s so unsanitary you just want to cry,” Fuentes says.
“I’ve been in places where I don’t know where to begin the inspection, because everything is so dirty. It’s a very common problem,” she says.
Fortunately, Fuentes goes in with a long checklist aimed at warding off a wide but sinister range of gastronomic mishaps.
She is on the lookout for signs of insects and rodents, or just plain dirt.
And what about the food?
Is the cheese moldy or the meat discolored? Are containers damaged, swollen or leaking? How does the fish smell? Are the strawberries getting soft? Are the potatoes starting to wither or sprout? Are the bagels harder than hockey pucks?
More than meets the eye
Sometimes you can tell by looking that the food isn’t wholesome, but not always.
“We make sure the equipment and utensils for cutting and processing the food is clean and that employees wear clean gloves when they handle it. And employees must wash their hands when they use the bathroom, even though they put on gloves,” she says.
“We check the temperatures to make sure that food which needs refrigeration is cold enough and food that has to be kept hot is hot enough,” she says. “We even check to make sure the salad bar has a ‘sneeze guard’ to protect the food from being hit with saliva when someone is talking.”
And Fuentes says she does not want to see salad dressings uncovered or the ladle handles submerged in the dressing.
“They must throw out any food that’s left on the salad bar at the end of the day,” she insists.
Reading labels, lists of ingredients and country of origin is also an important part of the inspector’s job, says Fuentes, “because food that was grown or prepared in other countries may have pesticides or other substances that are prohibited in this country.”
Whenever there is any doubt about the safety of a product, the inspector takes a sample and sends it out for testing, she says.
And while she is checking everything from employees’ personal hygiene habits to refrigeration and pesticides, Fuentes must also watch out for sloppy unit-pricing.
Inspector and teacher
As she makes the inspection, Fuentes notes all the deficiencies as she finds them.
“When I am finished checking everything, I review the list of deficiencies with the owner or manager and the employees,” Fuentes says. “The owner or manager signs it and then when I go home at the end of the day, I enter my report into the computer and send it to Albany. Within five business days, the department will send a copy of the written report to the store or other business that I inspected.”
While the list of things to check seems endless, it is at least objective and straightforward. But there are still countless ways for things to go awry.
“In Manhattan you have just about every kind of food establishment and just about every nationality and ethnic group owning, operating and working in them,” says Fuentes, who moved to this country from El Salvador in the 1970s and still has more than a trace of a Spanish accent.
It can be a real struggle, she says, to get people who speak little or no English and who come from different cultures with different customs, standards and regulations to understand what they need to do to meet the requirements in New York state.
“This has sometimes been a problem for me in Chinese or Korean establishments,” Fuentes says. “I tell the owner what to do differently to correct the deficiencies, and the owner says, ‘Yes, yes.’ But when I come back to check, nothing has changed.
“So I tell them again, and then I say to them, ‘Tell me what I just told you, so that I know you understand.’ But they just smile and say, ‘Yes, yes.’ So, I know they don’t understand,” Fuentes says.
What does she do then?
“I use sign language and I demonstrate exactly what I want them to do until I’m sure they do understand,” she says.
Work never really done
Considering how time consuming an inspection can be, it’s hard to imagine covering the entire state with a force of approximately 100 inspectors.
“We definitely need more inspectors,” Fuentes says. And PEF has been urging the state to hire more of them.
Nevertheless, there is no rushing through one inspection to get on to the next, according to Fuentes.
“The department wants a good inspection,” Fuentes says. “If we find something unfit for human consumption, we have to destroy it. If we are in doubt, we sample and test it. And if people don’t understand what they should be doing, we keep showing them and telling them.”
But no amount of patient, painstaking care on her part can make every store manager glad to see her. After all, she can force them to destroy products, and cite them for violations that could result in fines or eventually the loss of the operating license if deficiencies are not corrected.
“When you enforce government regulations, you are not always welcome,” Fuentes says. “If managers or employees are hostile, I leave and don’t go back there alone.”
In addition to her regularly scheduled inspections, Fuentes and the other inspectors can get emergency calls at any time to follow up on complaints that could range from reports of unsanitary conditions to outbreaks of food poisoning.
Keeping the public food supply safe and wholesome is a huge responsibility but one Fuentes says she finds very satisfying.
“I really like it when I go back to a place and find that they have corrected their deficiencies,” she says. “I enjoy helping people and knowing that without these inspections there would be a lot more illness.”