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jalapeno recall for salmonella

Chipotle Pulse: Minnesota Jalapeños Linked to Salmonella Outbreak ??

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If you manage a busy kitchen in Minnesota, you probably saw the news about the Salmonella outbreak tied to fresh jalapeños at state Chipotle locations. Dozens of people fell ill, proving how fast foodborne illness spreads. We’re tracking this situation so you have the facts needed to protect your customers.

The Details: What We Know Right Now

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is investigating a cluster of Salmonella cases linked to eating fresh jalapeños at various Chipotle restaurants. While they pin down the specific supplier, this outbreak highlights the inherent risks of handling fresh produce.

Fresh produce easily becomes contaminated when grown close to the ground, and washing it isn’t always a foolproof solution. If the contamination makes its way inside the plant tissue, simply rinsing the surface won’t eliminate the risk.

Why Jalapeños Pose a Specific Risk

Jalapeños have a textured surface that easily harbors bacteria. Kitchens often serve them raw or lightly cooked, which means there isn’t a kill step, like applying high heat, to destroy potential pathogens. It’s up to your staff’s handling practices to keep things safe on the prep line.

Protecting Your Minnesota Kitchen

Protecting your kitchen.

Get Safe food training in Minnesota.

What can you do today to minimize the risk in your own operation? It comes down to revisiting your core food safety protocols.

  • Supplier Verification: Know your suppliers. Confirm they adhere to Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), which are voluntary audits verifying that farms pack and handle fruits and vegetables safely.
  • Receiving Procedures: Inspect all incoming produce carefully. Look for signs of spoilage or improper temperature control during transport. If it looks questionable, reject the delivery.
  • Cross-Contamination Prevention: Treat raw produce with the same caution you would raw chicken. Use separate cutting boards and prep areas for raw produce and ready-to-eat foods.
  • Temperature Control: Keep cut produce properly refrigerated. The danger zone (41°F – 135°F) allows bacteria to multiply rapidly.

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More Minnesota Kitchen Resources

Food safety goes far beyond produce prep. Take a second to share these quick refreshers with your staff this week to keep your whole operation compliant:

The Importance of Ongoing Training

An outbreak like this is a sobering reminder that food safety requires constant education. As a ServSafe Instructor, a NEHA Registered Trainer, and an Always Food Safe Instructor & Proctor, I’ve seen firsthand how well-trained staff prevent minor slip-ups from becoming major health hazards.

If your staff needs training, remember to check their expiration dates. Minnesota professionals who take this Minnesota Department of Health-approved 4-hour refresher before their current 3-year certification expires get to skip the exam completely. Letting it lapse means they’re stuck retaking the entire 8-hour exam!

Register for class today!
slicer contamination

Commercial Food Slicer Safety: Preventing Cross-Contamination

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Prevent food slicer cross-contamination with a strict sanitation schedule!

In a professional Minnesota kitchen, the commercial food slicer is a cornerstone of efficiency. While its blade poses a clear physical risk, a more subtle and widespread danger is the cross-contamination that leads to foodborne illness. For a Certified Food Protection Manager, mastering commercial food slicer safety is less about the blade and more about controlling the microscopic world of bacteria, viruses, and allergens.

This guide focuses on the core sanitation principles that truly protect your customers: creating and enforcing a bulletproof system to prevent your slicer from becoming a vector for dangerous pathogens.

1. Why Slicers are a High-Risk Zone for Pathogens

A slicer’s complex design, with its guards, gears, and seams, creates numerous harbor points where food particles accumulate. This debris provides the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. When not meticulously cleaned, a slicer will transfer pathogens from one food to another—for instance, from raw meats to ready-to-eat cheeses.

  • The Danger of Biofilm: Over time, bacteria can form a slimy, protective layer known as a biofilm on equipment. This layer shields pathogens like Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium frequently linked to deli slicers, making them resistant to standard sanitizers.
  • Allergen Cross-Contact: Beyond pathogens, slicers are a primary source of allergen cross-contact. Trace amounts of cheese (a dairy allergen) or deli meats containing gluten can easily contaminate foods intended to be free from allergens.
  • Molds and Spoilage: Even tiny food particles left behind can develop mold, which then transfers to fresh products, accelerating spoilage and creating a risk of customer illness.

2. The Four-Hour Rule: A Non-Negotiable Standard

The FDA Food Code is unambiguous about cleaning frequency. must be broken down, cleaned, and sanitized at least once every four hours. This is a critical control point, not a suggestion. It is based on the speed at which harmful bacteria multiply to dangerous levels inside the temperature danger zone (41°F to 135°F). For any busy operation, this means a full sanitation procedure is mandatory during each shift, not just at the end of the shift.

3. The Step-by-Step Slicer Sanitation Process

A quick wipe-down is ineffective and dangerous. A compliant sanitation procedure is a detailed, multi-step process that must be followed precisely and accurately.

  1. Prepare for a Safe Cleaning: First, disconnect the power source by unplugging the slicer from the wall. Turn the blade dial to zero. Ensure you are wearing the required Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), especially cut-resistant gloves.
  2. Disassemble the Slicer: Follow the manufacturer’s directions to carefully remove all cleanable parts, including the food chute, blade guard, and product tray. This is the only way to access all food-contact surfaces.
  3. Wash, Rinse, and Sanitize: Use a three-compartment sink setup. In the first sink, wash parts with hot, soapy water and a brush to remove all physical debris. In the second step, rinse them thoroughly with clean, hot water. In the third step, sanitize the parts by submerging them in a properly concentrated, food-safe chemical solution for the required contact time.
  4. Air Dry Completely: Place all sanitized parts on a clean surface and allow them to air dry. Using a cloth to dry can re-contaminate the surfaces you have just cleaned. Once dry, reassemble the slicer.

Your Leadership Role in Preventing Contamination

slicer contamination.
Prevent slicer contamination with these tips!

As a Certified Food Protection Manager, your responsibility extends beyond simply knowing these steps. You must effectively train your team on the importance of each step, provide the necessary tools and time to perform the job correctly, and establish a system to ensure that these procedures are followed consistently. Your leadership is what transforms knowledge into a lasting culture of food safety.

Mastering these commercial food slicer safety protocols is a non-negotiable part of running a professional and reputable food establishment. These procedures are a core competency taught in our Certified Food Protection Manager course, where we empower you with the knowledge to protect your customers from the hidden dangers of contamination.

Contact Safe Food Training today to book a session for your team or follow the link to our upcoming courses!

Shigella

Shocking Shigella Alert: Facts Every Food Protection Manager Must Know Now

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Shigella Alert: What Every Certified Food Protection Manager Must Know

Shigella

How to prevent Shigella.

In the complex world of food safety, certain pathogens demand our utmost attention. Shigella is one of them. As a certified food protection manager, recognize the threat Shigella poses to build strong defenses in your establishment. Shigella’s high infectivity and severe health consequences demand rigorous control beyond other contaminants.

This isn’t about fear—it’s about empowerment. Understanding the science behind Shigella, including how it spreads and the precise actions to prevent it, enables you to lead your team with confidence. Additionally, it helps you protect every customer who walks through your doors.

Why Shigella is a “Big 6” Pathogen

Shigella is a group of bacteria that causes an infection known as shigellosis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates it is responsible for approximately 450,000 infections in the United States each year. Fever, stomach pain, and diarrhea that is often bloody characterize the illness.

However, what truly sets Shigella apart is its designation by the FDA as one of the “Big 6” foodborne pathogens, alongside Norovirus, Hepatitis A, Salmonella Typhi, Nontyphoidal Salmonella, and E. coli. The FDA designates highly infectious pathogens that cause severe illness and are frequently transmitted by food employees as having this special status.

  • Extremely Low Infectious Dose: Shigella is notoriously easy to contract. It takes as few as 10 to 100 bacterial cells to cause an infection. This microscopic amount easily transfers from contaminated surfaces or unwashed hands to food.
  • Severity of Illness: While many cases resolve in 5-7 days, some can lead to severe complications, including post-infectious arthritis and bloodstream infections.
  • Emerging Drug Resistance: The CDC has issued alerts regarding extensive drug-resistant (XDR) strains of Shigella. These “superbug” versions are resistant to all commonly recommended antibiotics, making prevention, not treatment, the only reliable strategy.

How Shigella Spreads in a Food Service Environment

The primary mode of transmission for Shigella is the fecal-oral route. This means an infected person’s stool passes the bacteria to the mouth of another person. In a food service setting, this happens almost exclusively through the hands of an infected food employee. If an employee uses the restroom and fails to wash their hands properly, they can contaminate everything they touch afterward, including food, equipment, door handles, and utensils.

  • Direct Food Contamination: This is the most common risk in a kitchen. An infected employee preparing salads, slicing fruit, or making sandwiches can directly transfer the bacteria to ready-to-eat foods.
  • Contaminated Water: Produce irrigated or washed with contaminated water can carry Shigella into your kitchen.
  • Person-to-Person Spread: Because the infectious dose is so low, the bacteria can spread rapidly among staff members if hygiene protocols are not strictly followed, increasing the risk of a widespread outbreak.

Your Action Plan: A Certified Food Protection Manager’s Prevention Strategy

As a Certified Food Protection Manager, your role is to move from awareness to action. Preventing a Shigella outbreak depends on implementing, monitoring, and enforcing a multi-layered defense system. Your leadership in these areas is non-negotiable.

  • Mandate Impeccable Hand Hygiene: This is your single most effective tool. Go beyond simply having sinks available.
  • Action: Implement a policy requiring hand washing for at least 20 seconds with soap and water. Ensure it is done after using the restroom, before starting work, between tasks, and any time hands may have become contaminated.
  • Verification: Directly observe staff during shifts and make handwashing a key part of your daily walk-throughs.
  • Enforce a Strict Employee Health Policy: An employee with diarrhea cannot work.
  • Action: The FDA Food Code requires that any employee diagnosed with an illness from Shigella spp. be excluded from work. Your policy must be even more direct: any employee experiencing vomiting or diarrhea, regardless of the cause, must report it and stay home.
  • Support: Create a work environment where employees feel safe reporting symptoms without fear of penalty.
  • Implement Rigorous Cleaning and Sanitizing: Treat every surface as a potential point of cross-contamination.
  • Action: Develop a clear schedule for cleaning and sanitizing all food-contact surfaces, equipment, and high-touch areas (such as cooler handles and POS screens) with approved sanitizers.
  • Training: Ensure staff understand the difference between cleaning (removing soil) and sanitizing (reducing pathogens to safe levels), as well as the correct procedures for both.
handwashing

The key to preventing shigella is handwashing!

A well-trained team led by a knowledgeable certified food protection manager is the ultimate defense against pathogens like Shigella. Your expertise is critical to public health and the success of your business.

Is your team fully ready to handle threats like Shigella? Safe Food Training offers expert, instructor-led options for 8-hour food manager certification and continuing education, all right here in Minnesota. Ensure that you and your team have the knowledge and tools to protect both customers and employees. 

Register for an upcoming course today!

CFPMs can reinforce Approved use of Sanitizing Solutions

How CFPMs Can Reinforce Approved Use Of Sanitation Solutions

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Sanitizer solutions are essential in reducing the risk of sickening guests, but when used improperly, they can actually increase foodborne illness hazards. So how can certified food protection managers ensure that the staff is using the sanitation solution properly?

Proper Sanitation Solution Use for Certified Food Protection Managers

There are four things CFPMs should be aware of when it comes to properly using sanitizer solutions:

  • Approved Solutions
  • Strength
  • Effective Time Lapse
  • Cloths Soaked in Solution
CFPMs Can Reinforce Approved Use Of Sanitation Solutions
Image credit: vectorfusionart via 123rf

Your sanitizer solution must be a solution approved by the Minnesota food code. Common approved solutions include bleach, quat sanitizers and iodine. These solutions must be mixed to the appropriate strength, so follow the directions closely and use test strips from your sanitizer supplier to ensure proper strength. If it’s too strong, you risk contaminating food with the chemicals involved, and weak solutions will not properly sanitize your surfaces and equipment. Many restaurant suppliers offer automated dispensers that will mix sanitizers and water at the appropriate strength, just make sure to test from time to time to ensure that your solutions are in acceptable ranges.

Sanitizer solutions don’t remain effective forever, so certified food protection managers should instruct their staff to dispose of old sanitizer at regular intervals. If used often, these solutions may become less effective sooner than indicated on the bottle’s label, so be aware that solutions may need to be rotated frequently.

Finally, be aware that your solutions don’t necessarily completely sanitize cleaning rags. If you have an extremely dirty cloth and continue to use it, you’re not exactly sanitizing anything. In fact, you could be spreading grease and bacteria all over your kitchen no matter how long a dirty rag has sat in your sanitizer solution. The best plan is to keep a damp sanitizer rag available rather than soaking it in sanitizer buckets and use clean cloths after old ones become soiled.

Do you take the time to test your sanitizer solutions from time to time to ensure their effectiveness?