Mmmmm, Stadium Food

[rkmsuf]

I love moldy salsa.

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Flagging the Food
"Gross."

"Disgusting."

"Makes me want to throw up."

That's what some fans are saying at Lambeau Field.

But they're not talking about the Green Bay Packers on-field play or losing record.

They're reacting to health department inspection reports detailing some disturbing food safety violations at Lambeau Field over the past four years.

FOX 6 News obtained those documents -- as well as food safety inspections for many other NFL stadiums around the country -- for an in-depth investigation on stadium food safety.

Among the violations recorded by the Brown County Health Deparment:

--Hamburgers only partially cooked

--Utensils considered dirty or "overgrown with mold"

--Handwashing sinks not providing warm water

--Debris in beer taps

--Food service employees licking their fingers, touching their nose or touching their mouth -- then handling more food without washing their hands

--Food service workers seen putting on the same plastic gloves they had taken into a bathroom with them -- and not washing their hands in the kitchen after leaving the restroom to return to work

--Some hotdogs, brats, chili, hamburgers, subs, pasta, ribs, sour cream, and shrimp maintained at potentially unsafe temperatures

"Certainly the public, if they see those things, would be a little disgusted," said Marty Adams, the Brown County Health Department sanitarian who inspects Lambeau Field at least three times each Packers season.

"Never been to Lambeau where there wasn't something," he added.

Adams says the most common violations at Lambeau Field are related to hand washing and food temperatures. "They're the same issues we find at just about every restaurant," Adams told FOX 6 Investigator Bob Segall.

Food must be stored and maintained at temperatures below 41 degrees or above 135 degrees to prevent the possible breeding of dangerous bacteria, according to the health department.

Overall, Adams says he is impressed with the food safety at Lambeau Field. "There are very few violations for the size of the facility. I eat there myself," he added.

The Packers contract with Levy Restaurants to provide food service inside the stadium. A Levy spokesman says the company considers food safety its top priority.

"We're running a great program here," said Scott Kleckner, Levy's Director of Operations at Lambeau Field. "As far as violations, these are very isolated incidents and when they do arise, we correct them immediately."

Kleckner says every year, Levy trains its 200 employees and 1,000 volunteers at Lambeau on proper food handling and hand washing techniques in order to avoid problems associated with food safety.

While the health department in Green Bay inspects the stadium for food safety several times each year, other health departments do things differently.

The Chicago Health Department inspects Soldier Field once a year. Last year, that inspection took place on a Monday afternoon in May. At the time of the inspection, there was no football, no fans, and no food.

How can the Chicago Health Department check for food safety when there is no food being prepared or served?

Tim Hadac, a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Public Health, says food safety inspections in that city focus on protocols and education which "require quite a bit of time and are more effectively conducted in a setting other than a game day."

Hadac points out there has been no documented food borne illness outbreak associated with Soldier Field in at least twenty years.

Yet the reality in Chicago is that hundreds of thousands of meals are prepared and served at Soldier Field each year and not one of those meals is inspected by anyone at the Chicago Health Department.

"Our inspections are always done on game days," Marty Adams told FOX 6. "There's not a lot to see when there's no food being cooked and no employees handling any food... We aren't going to see any of the things which tend to be the largest reason the public might get sick."

The Brown County Health Department pays its sanitarians overtime on Sundays in order to inspect food safety at Lambeau Field.

FOX 6 has learned Chicago Health Department sanitarians usually work 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, and are rarely permitted to work on Sundays (when most Chicago Bears football games take place at Soldier Field).

Inspection reports from around the country show Lambeau Field is not alone when it comes to food safety violations found by health inspectors.

The FOX 6 Investigators obtained inspection reports for 16 NFL stadiums. At nearly every one of those stadiums, inspectors noted critical violations related to food temperatures and improper hand washing practices and facilities.

A sampling of 2004-2005 violations at other stadiums include:

--Inspectors found rodent droppings in or around food service areas at NFL stadiums in Minnesota, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

--Two stadium ice cream stands were temporarily shut down at Ford Field in Detroit because inspectors discovered they had no hand washing facilities.

--Inspectors found "slime mold" inside ice machines at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Health Department also noted that a food service employee had been working at the stadium despite being diagnosed with E Coli poisoning.

--At Gillette Stadium, home of the defending champion New England Patriots, an inspector observed "blood driping onto [beer] kegs" (sic) from raw meat sitting above the kegs in a cooler. Inspectors also noted "moldy salsa," "no hot water in handwashing sinks," and "employee dropped a bag of [pasta] shells on the floor & reused." The Health Agent for the Town of Foxborough (Mass.) originally said he would not release the Gillette Stadium inspection reports to FOX 6 without a subpoena because "they might contain damagaing information." FOX 6 challenged that position and the Foxborough Board of Health later released the reports.


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[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

--Some hotdogs, brats, chili, hamburgers, subs, pasta, ribs, sour cream, and shrimp maintained at potentially unsafe temperatures

You deserve to get sick if you eat shrimp in a football stadium...

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

Hamburgers only partially cooked

They're better this way.

[Hurst2112]

I pissed in a sink at the old Lambeau once.