Food inspectors 'can't meet' schedule

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A Target 8 undercover shopper lingered over the deli case examining packages of meat one by one in a small Grand Rapids grocery store late last month. Seemingly shoved toward the back of the refrigerator were several items such as pre-sliced deli meat that were several weeks to several months past their use-by date.

But when the Target 8 shopper put them in her basket a store employee suddenly appeared and started grabbing them back. She removed all the outdated items. Later at the checkout, the same employee was asked if she always looked closely at everything.

"Yep," she replied, "because I don't want anything to happen to people."

The store has a history of critical violations.

In the state's March inspection report Target 8 found that an employee failed to wash hands during the entire inspection. Workers failed to sanitize the meat grinder and there were mouse droppings in the basement. The state seized two outdated items and 10 pounds of what the inspector called suspected contaminated beef.

In another small, independently-owned store in Grand Rapids, Target 8 investigators couldn't tell what the brownish liquid was in a big jar in the refrigerator because it had no label at all.  

A clerk said it was fish.

That store was cited a year ago for offering for-sale food without labels, perishables without sell-by dates and no designated food work area -- though the store did have a sink cluttered with personal food and even toothbrushes and toothpaste.

But Target 8 investigators couldn't go where the state inspectors go---behind the counter into the other off-limit parts of a store, the coolers and the food prep areas. Target 8 couldn't tell if a store had cleaned up its act.

Of even more concern, Target 8 discovered that state inspectors are not making the rounds as often as they should.

"We know we're not getting to as many places as we want to as fast as we want to," said Kevin Besey, the Michigan Department of Agriculture's Food and Dairy Director.

Using the Freedom of Information Act,Target 8 investigators found the draft of a recent internal audit showing that inspections were overdue. State inspectors look at grocery and convenience stores, warehouses, food processors and farmers markets.  The state sets its own standard for how often inspectors should visit, and the schedule depends on the level of risk for each place.

In August, Target 8 investigators asked for the most recent inspection reports for all grocery stores in Kent County and looked at the high risk places - the ones that carry the greatest chance of a consumer getting sick from the food, such as perishables and deli food.  

The state wants to inspect the high risk stores every six months. But Target 8 found they hit that mark only 35% of the time, while 14% of inspections were up to six months overdue and 47% were between six and 18 months overdue.  

"We set an aggressive schedule that we probably can't meet," Besey said.

He said the inspections are supposed to make sure store managers -- who have to take classes, a test and be certified -- are ensuring employees are handling food safely. If they are slow getting to the stores, he said, "then some risky practices may be happening and if we're not there to help find those and correct those they could occur longer before we get to them."

The 49 state inspectors each have a caseload of some 300 places, Besey told Target 8. They not only have to do regular inspections but follow up on violations and handle emergencies, such as a recent grocery store fire. And, he said, they need to take the time to do quality work, not just looking around but questioning the store manager and then the employees to see if the manager really is ensuring safe food handling practices.   
Besey said the main reason inspections are overdue is the number of inspectors.    

"It's really having more people on the ground," he said. "When you're covering establishments statewide in a state as large as Michigan, where it takes 12 hours to drive one end to the other and we have 65,000 food establishments, between the establishments that we oversee and what our local health departments, do there's a lot of ground to cover."

The public can help by reporting problems consumers find in stores, he said.  People should always check the labels, ingredient lists and expiration dates because state inspectors can't be everywhere.