From fish heads to pigs feet, all kinds of flesh and fruit at a Miami Gardens supermarket got sent to the garbage when state inspectors unleashed a monsoon of Stop Sale Orders during a visit this week.
Inspectors also found inadequate hand-washing, equipment maintenance and cleanliness at the Price Choice Foodmarket at 18351 NW 27th Ave. when they dropped by Wednesday.
This Price Choice, owned by J&J Family Food Corp. (president, secretary, treasurer, director Davie’s Juan Diaz), also failed an inspection in 2022 when mold grew on food and equipment. A year ago, the Hialeah Price Choice, owned by J Mary J Food Corp. (Juan Diaz, secretary, Plantation’s Osiris Diaz, president), got caught leaving food on pallets out near the sidewalk, leaving doors open for pests and leaving general cleanliness behind.
Here’s some of what filled a 12-page inspection report by Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspectors Pedro Llanos and Kaitlyn Ford.
▪ “Numerous small, flying insects observed around the kitchen, produce, meat, seafood, retail, receiving and dumpster areas.” So, pretty much the whole store.
▪ Someone working in the food service area “didn’t wash hands before putting on gloves.”
▪ A kitchen area food employee didn’t wash hands when coming back into the kitchen from who knows where.
▪ The meat area’s handwash sink next to the three-compartment sink apparently isn’t in what the MTV generation called “heavy rotation,” seeing as how it was “found with old food debris on the fixture.”
▪ “Single use gloves” were used to cut raw meat, handle equipment and handle salted fish filet (bacalao). That’s three uses. Stop Sale on the 50-pound box of bacalao, and the equipment got cleaned.
(This will not be the last of the Stop Sales).
▪ A case of fish sat inside walk-in cooler, uncovered, though the store does actually sell things like Saran Wrap.
▪ In the food service area, the meat grinder, on the job since 8 a.m., hadn’t been washed, rinsed and sanitized as of 1:30 a.m. That’s supposed to happen after every four hours of use.
▪ The kitchen three-compartment sink’s sanitizer wasn’t just below the required 200 parts per million, it was non-existent: zero parts per million.
▪ Near that triple sink, there were “buckets of food items stored directly on the floor.”
▪ “Carbon buildup” marred kitchen pots and pans. “Soil and old food debris” did the same to the bottom shelves of a walk-in freezer.
▪ In the meat and seafood areas, the walk-in cooler’s air conditioning was “leaking above the table saw.” Apparently, this A/C version of a runny nose spread to the backroom area’s walk-in cooler’s A/C condenser.
▪ The kitchen’s hot water heater was broken, but repaired during the inspection.
▪ In the food service area, the inspectors saw a “knock board used to discard espresso grinds stored inside a receptacle used for general trash.” Yes, this is standard procedure for Miami-Dade places serving cafecito, and, yes, it’s still a violation.
Succession of Stop Sale Orders
Despite being a supermarket, which one could expect sells a functional food thermometer, inspectors found this Price Choice had “no probe thermometer available for assessing, receiving and holding” of foods.
So, once inspectors started poking the food with their thermometers, the parade of food to the garbage began.
▪ What should’ve been for packaged, sliced watermelon that had been on the produce shelves and raw pork ribs cut the previous night: measuring at or below 41 degrees.
▪ What actually was for the three trays of watermelon slices and six styrofoam trays of pork ribs: 54 degrees and 44 to 46 degrees, respectively. Stop Sale and Stop Sale.
▪ On the produce shelves where that watermelon had previously lived, another 52 packages of sliced and chunked watermelon, honeydew and canteloupe sat at 44 degrees to a balmy, mushy 66 degrees. Basura.
▪ In the meat department, the peddled flesh kept at bacteria boat temperatures of 44 to 50 degrees included salami (Strike 1), bacon (Strike 2) and beef bologna (Strike 3). Three up, three down, 26 packages smashed with a Stop Sale.
▪ The inspectors wound up clearing out the hot counter storage unit, which contained chicken empanadas, beef pastelitos, potatoes stuffed with beef, yuca stuffed with beef, beef patties, packaged pork roast and a tray of chicharrones.
All should’ve been kept at or over 135 degrees. The chicharrones came in at 81 degrees. The packaged pork roast at 103 degrees and everything else at 116 to 117 degrees. Inspectors allowed the chicharrones to be reheated and showered Stop Sales on the rest.
▪ The seafood display counter showed cod, conch, corvina, grouper and shrimp on ice. There needed to be more ice or colder ice. Temperatures of 46 to 55 degrees said the seafood sat on insufficient ice. Thus did the garbage gain a fishy odor from the Stop Sales on four trays of seafood.
▪ A 2.5-pound bucket of marinated chicken leg quarters in the kitchen area came in at 53 degrees. But, far more disturbing in the kitchen area was a “container storing tripe and pigs feet.”
Whether or not the tripe and pigs feet sat in green juice, they were being thawed at room temperature, measured 73 degrees, a temperature that can turn pork into food-borne illness Death Stars able to blow up your insides.
▪ The dry breading used for frying the raw fish hadn’t been used since the previous day and wasn’t sifted every four hours nor had it been refrigerated. These shortcomings led to a Stop Sale on a 4-inch deep, 12-inch by 10-inch pan of breading.
▪ “Flying insect observed on grouper fish heads at the display counter.” Stop Sale on two fish heads.