Assignment task: A catering business delivers meals for functions and conferences from a central kitchen. The local area health service hires the business to provide catering for professional development conference for staff from local hospitals. The caterer delivers food, including pork rolls with salad and home-made mayonnaise. The day after the conference ends hospitals call the local area health service requesting emergency relief staff for 80 regular employees who have called in sick after attending the conference. The emergency department for one hospital is severely understaffed by the outbreak, and patients must be transferred to another hospital over an hour away for emergency treatment. The NSW Food Authority is notified, and officers investigate the catering business within 24 hours of the hospitals reporting the outbreak. When Food Authority officers investigate, they find the kitchen benches have several baked-on food scraps and egg shells. The hand washing instructions are located hanging over a sink full of dirty dishes and the hot water tap is operated using a pair of pliers. The business owner disputes this is an issue and claims his business' cleaning procedure includes a sanitiser. The owner demonstrates the cleaning schedule by spraying disposable paper towel with chemical sanitiser before wiping down recently used benches. He runs a tea towel under cool water and wipes the sanitiser off the benches. Officers note there are still food scraps on the bench after the demonstration. Further inspections reveal evidence of pest activity and cockroach traps buried under grease and dust. The owner admits the appointed Food Safety Supervisor was the business accountant, and not responsible for any food preparation duties. There is no evidence the food safety supervisor has provided staff with training or procedures to minimise food safety risks. Temperature control records and cleaning rosters have not been completed in six months. The Food Authority issues a prohibition order, shutting down the catering business immediately and cancelling all orders for functions for the next week. A further prohibition order is issued preventing mayonnaise-based foods for an additional three weeks until the chefs can demonstrate a new mayonnaise recipe is safe.
Question 1: List four (4) issues from this case study that likely contributed to the foodborne illness outbreak.
Question 2: How would you improve the cleaning and sanitising procedure?
Question 3: What are the Food Safety Supervisor Responsibilities?