A spider web on a mixer among problems at a Hialeah bakery that serves local restaurants
If you’ve eaten at a local restaurant or food truck, there’s a chance the buns or rolls came from Hialeah’s Bernardino’s Bakery, where a state inspector found poor hand-washing habits, unsanitary handling of food and a lack of pest control among other problems.
One example from Sept. 6: “48 exposed hot dog buns stored directly on a heavily soiled chest freezer top 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 gets “Re-Inspection Required” but doesn’t automatically close down the establishment. An inspector can hit areas and equipment with Stop-Use Orders. Enough of those and a business might decide it shouldn’t or can’t open.
Inspector Zuleima Chow showered Bernardino’s with Stop-Use Orders — and thorough descriptions of violations — during the Sept. 6 once-over. She lifted most of the Stop-Use Orders during Monday’s re-visit.
Here’s what Inspector Chow saw during the initial inspection:
▪ “No labels for packaged bread (hamburger buns, hot dog buns, hoagie rolls) and fried plantains sold in bulk to local restaurants and food trucks for further processing, as required in the Code of Federal Regulations.”
▪ An “employee handling hamburger buns with bare hands contact and packaging inside plastic bags in the processing area when the sole hand sink located in the processing area has no soap, paper towels, nor hand sanitizer.” In an attempt to rectify the situation, “the employee later washed hands at the three-compartment sink with detergent, dried hands on a rag, and donned new gloves.”
▪ The same person, a little later, was drinking from a bottle “while packaging exposed hot dog buns into plastic bags, without washing hands after drinking and donning new gloves, when hands may have become soiled or contaminated.” Four hamburger buns and six hot dog buns got trashed.
▪ As for the hand-wash sink in the processing area where ready-to-eat bread was being handled, there wasn’t any soap, paper towels or hand sanitizer.
▪ “Walls throughout the establishment with flour residues, grease, and/or soiled. Furthermore, ceiling in the proofer room has paint chipping.” But the proofer held no food, at least during the inspection.
▪ The walk-in-cooler’s evaporator drain line drained into a trash can next to where dough and ready-to-eat breads were stored. The setup was “not constructed in such a manner as to prevent drip or condensate from fixtures, ducts and pipes from contaminating food.” The inspector did note, however, that no food got contaminated.
▪ The front rolling door leading to dry storage and back exit door near the processing area “had wide gaps underneath,” which meant “no adequate protection provided against entry of pests.”
▪ On Bernardino’s east wall in the dry storage area, processing area and baking area “observed multiple roach wings.” Inspector Crow noticed “measures are not being taken to exclude pests from the manufacturing, processing, packing and holding areas. No pest control records are available.”
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▪ Clean knives used to halve buns were no longer clean after being “stored directly between a water pipe line and soiled wall above the three-compartment sink.”
As for why Chow punched Bernardino’s with a fist of five Stop-Use Orders — cutter equipment, a dough kneader, a dough rounder, two sheeters, and three dough bowl mixers:
▪ The processing equipment used to make Bernardino’s main product, bread, was “encrusted with dough and heavy accumulation of grease in the three mixers (heads, guards, spiral hooks, and bowls), divider (cutter), two sheeters, one dough rounder and one kneader.”
▪ Also, the baking pans, rolling carts, dollies and the shelf under the processing table were “encrusted with grease and old food residues, not cleaned in a manner and as frequently as necessary to protect against ... contamination of food, food-contact surfaces and food-packaging materials.”
▪ The “ice machine door and chest freezer gaskets are soiled ... the chest freezer door top, three-compartment sink, hand wash sink and paper towel dispenser were heavily soiled with grease.”
▪ “Furthermore, plastic curtains that lead to the proofer room, have mold-like substances on the lower half of the plastic curtains. A cob web is also observed on one of the mixer guards.”
▪ “Observed 48 exposed hot dog buns stored directly on a heavily soiled chest freezer top in the processing area, staged for packaging into plastic bags...”
