160 | Special Edition | Food Safety Competition |

Plus, a 10 million pound recall, free food safety webinars and fraud in ginseng supplements

This is The Rotten Apple, an inside view on food fraud and food safety for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for insights, latest news and emerging trends straight to your inbox each Monday.

• Food Safety News and Resources;

• Competition: Food Safety Escape Room;

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.

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Happy World Food Day!

This week’s edition of The Rotten Apple celebrates World Food Day with a competition. Be the first to solve the puzzles and successfully ‘escape’ the virtual kitchen to win prizes for you and your team.

World Food Day 2024 is an initiative of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which aims to raise awareness about global food security and is celebrated on Wednesday this week. In 2024, the theme is sustainable practices and innovations needed to build resilient food systems.

If you have a young person in your life you might encourage them to enter the World Food Day poster competition but I reckon our food safety escape room competition will be more fun.

The escape room competition dominates this week’s issue but you’ll also find my usual weekly food safety news and resources roundup plus food fraud news for paying subscribers. Normal programming returns next week.

Hope you have lots of fun with the competition. I sure had fun making it.

Karen

P.S. Shout out to Scott who just renewed his annual subscription for the third time, making him one of the elite super-supporters of this publication 👏👏 Thank you for your support 👏👏 I couldn’t make this newsletter without you.

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Food Safety News and Resources

My food safety news roundups are where I share unusual recalls, large outbreaks, new research, guidance papers and free webinars without overloading this email or clogging up your inbox.

This week’s roundup includes recalls of enoki mushrooms (yes, again), and 10 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry, plus a food safety report from Europe, new complaints reporting from the US FDA and three helpful free webinars.

Click the preview below to read.

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Food Safety Escape Room

A competition: be the first to escape and win a prize

How to play

You (and your team) are locked inside a commercial kitchen and have to solve a series of puzzles to escape. 

Collect five objects in the correct order to unlock the combination on the exit door.  The objects are a red sticker, a purple clipboard, a yellow spoon, a green scourer and a blue glove.

Every puzzle answer will direct you to a different part of the kitchen, where you will collect an object.

The first person (or team) to send me the correct order of items successfully ‘unlocks’ the door and wins a set of food safety stickers and a food safety champion mug.

HINT:  The correct combination contains 2 to 5 objects.  No objects are repeated.

Start:  Handwash Station

A complete handwash process has ten steps.  Four of those steps can be seen below.  Put the four steps into the correct chronological order.

Images: World Health Organization

• If you think the correct order is A, B, C, D go to the refrigerator

• If you think the correct order is D, C, A, B go to the wheeled trolley

• If you think the correct order is D, A, C, B go to the rangehood

• If you think the correct order is B, D, C, A go to the sink

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Refrigerator

At the refrigerator, collect a red sticker, then solve this riddle about the two-hour four-hour rule.

Clue: You've just finished a big meal, and now it’s time to pack up the leftovers. But there's a problem: If you don’t handle them properly, they won’t be safe. How long can you safely leave perishable foods out on the table before you must put them in the fridge or throw them away?

Riddle: To keep me safe, you'll have to be wise, how many hours before it’s time to say goodbye?

A) Food that’s been out for more than 2 hours but less than 4 hours can safely be put in the fridge for another day

B) Food that’s been out for more than 2 hours but less than 4 hours isn’t safe to keep as leftovers and must be thrown away

C) Food that’s been out for more than 4 hours is safe to keep for another day

D) Food that’s been out for more than 4 hours is safe to eat but not safe to keep for another day

• If you think A is correct go to the sink

• If you think B is correct go to the rangehood

• If you think C is correct go to the clipboard

• If you think D is correct go to the wheeled trolley

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Wheeled Trolley

At the wheeled trolley, collect a blue glove, then choose the correct answer for the question below.

A pack of tasty banana bread has this information on the label:

Thinking about allergen controls, if the banana bread is made on the same production equipment as sesame-seed-topped bread rolls, carrot+sesame cakes with cream cheese icing and gluten-free+vegan-friendly cupcakes, which order of production would be the most sensible?

A) Gluten-free vegan-friendly cupcakes > Carrot and sesame cakes with cream cheese icing > Sesame-seed rolls > Banana Bread

B) Gluten-free vegan-friendly cupcakes > Banana Bread > Sesame-seed rolls > Carrot and sesame cakes with cream cheese icing

C) Banana Bread > Gluten-free vegan-friendly cupcakes> Sesame-seed rolls > Carrot and sesame cakes with cream cheese icing

D) Sesame-seed rolls > Banana Bread > Carrot and sesame cakes with cream cheese icing > Gluten-free vegan-friendly cupcakes

• If you think answer A is correct go to the sink

• If you think answer B is correct go to the refrigerator

• If you think answer C is correct go to the rangehood

• If you think answer D is correct go to the clipboard

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Clipboard

The clipboard is where the kitchen’s cleaning records are kept. Check the cleaning records for the kitchen, then collect the purple clipboard.  The clipboard is your final object.  You’re finished, you don’t need to visit any other parts of the kitchen. To win the prize, be the first to send your combination to me by replying to this email, or wait for the answer in next week’s newsletter.

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Rangehood

At the rangehood, collect a yellow spoon, then solve this puzzle:

A group of basketballers who travelled interstate for a game all became violently ill at about the same time on the second day of their trip.  They experienced vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.  What is the most likely cause of their illness?

A) Listeria monocytogenes from eating ham sandwiches at their hotel

B) Salmonella from fish curry served on the plane

C) Aflatoxins in the breakfast buffet coffee

D) Norovirus from salad served on the plane

• If you think answer A is correct go to the refrigerator

• If you think answer B is correct go to the clipboard

• If you think answer C is correct go to the sink

• If you think answer D is correct go to the wheeled trolley

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Sink

Collect a green scourer and match the microorganisms to their names. Hint: size matters!

A)   1 = Bacillus cereus  2 = norovirus  3 = Aspergillus niger  4 = Saccharomyces cerevisiae

B)   1 = Saccharomyces cerevisiae 2 = Bacillus cereus  3 = Aspergillus niger  4 = norovirus

C)   1 = norovirus 2 = Bacillus cereus  3 = Aspergillus niger  4 = Saccharomyces cerevisiae

D)   1 = norovirus 2 = Saccharomyces cerevisiae 3 = Aspergillus niger 4 = Bacillus cereus

• If you think answer A is correct go to the refrigerator

• If you think answer B is correct go to the wheeled trolley

• If you think answer C is correct go to the clipboard

• If you think answer D is correct go to the rangehood

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Did you escape?

Were you able to unlock the door using the combination of objects? Find out next week when I share the answer.

To win

Be the first to submit the correct combination to me and win a set of food safety stickers and a mug. Example: sticker, clipboard, spoon, sponge, glove.

To submit, simply reply to this email or write to me at therottenapple@substack.com

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Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, emerging risks and incident reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Highlights from the EU monthly fraud suspicions report;
📌 Food fraud investigation training;
📌 Warnings for peanuts, pecans and phosphates;
📌 Ginseng fraud.

Highlights of the EU monthly fraud suspicions report

Every month the European Commission publishes a report which lists food safety non-compliances that might be caused by food fraud.  The report for August had a record low number: 222 alerts down from 325 in the previous month.  However, we don’t know if this is a seasonal phenomenon since these reports only began in January 2024.

As in previous months’ reports, the category of food with the most suspicious alerts was fruit and veg, with the majority related to the presence of residues of pesticides illegal in the EU or higher than the EU limits.  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s likely that many of those non-compliances are accidental, with farmers in non-EU countries possibly unaware of the pesticide regulations in Europe.

However, there are a few notable items in the most recent report that can be used to inform food fraud vulnerability assessments, and these include