Regardless of which state you live in Australia, there are some exceptionally poor hygiene practices that occur in kitchens that are serving food to the public. We have some examples that we wanted to share with you from Brisbane and Melbourne,highlighting kitchens fined over poor hygiene practices.
One recent example in Brisbane is the West End Garden restaurant. On inspection, this well known and long established eating venue was found to have several serious breaches of food safety. Brisbane City council was informed by council prosecutor Mark Thomas that a tea-towell, ice cream balls and a dish cloth were tainted by salmonella, and that chicken and beef was found tenderising in a kitchen sink at an alarming temperature. The chicken temperature was recorded at 24 degrees Celsius, while the beef was 24.9 degrees Celsius, which is well above recommended safe temperatures. The investigation occurred after five diners had suffered food poisoning after eating at the restaurant. Minh Tri Nguyen was ordered to pay $37,500 in fines after he pleaded guilty to multiple food safety violations.
Looking at Melbourne, eleven restaurants were found guilty of breaching the food act last year. The notices that were served to these various eating place included multiple citations of risking food contamination due to unsanitary conditions, including lack of hand washing facilites, towells, soap, accumulation of food waste and dirt and rodent faeces in flour and bread crumbs. Several of these businesses were fined approximately $50,000 each for their food safety violations. The table provided below shows the names of the restaurants and the hefty fines that were imposed.
Unhygienic sink kitchen used to tenderise chicken