July 18, 2013

The reason restaurants don’t talk about this stuff

photo

I just read the Boston Globe story from today. But first I read the bostonglobe.com before the paywall version:

Clover restaurant’s lapses preceded outbreak

When a city inspector went to Clover restaurant in East Cambridge last Friday she found spoiled cauliflower, hummus and various salads coming back from food trucks at improper temperatures, and no one on hand to supervise the kitchen staff.

And the front page they ran online:

Clover restaurant’s lapses preceded outbreak

The Clover CEO acknowledged there were food safety practices with which they “could do a lot better.”

  • 7/16: Twelve are sickened by food poisoning at Clover
  • Clover’s March food inspection report (pdf)
  • Clover’s July food inspection report (pdf)

I’m not going to make this a long post. [sorry, I didn’t intend to, but it’s a little long now that I look at it]. But I wanted to make some quick comments. First, it’s clear to me that this is irrresponsible journalism. Why would I say that?

“Clover restaurant’s lapses preceded outbreak”

–What should have been said is that Clover, like all operating restaurants, has items that were identified, by inspectors, in previous inspections that were dealt with in the past. These past “lapses” have nothing to do with our current shut-down. They have nothing to do with concern about the current MA Salmonella outbreak (which by the way could have had nothing to do with our food or our operating practices, we just don’t know yet, no samples have come back).

“She found spoiled cauliflower, hummus, and various salads coming back from food trucks at improper temperatures, and no one on hand to supervise the kitchen staff.”

— Again, not factual. First, the “spoiled cauliflower” was an heirloom variety of cauliflower that came from a local organic farm. It wasn’t white, but it certainly wasn’t spoiled. And it wasn’t coming back from the trucks. It was in our walk-in fridge at the HUB. And it wasn’t prepared. Meaning it wasn’t ready to eat. As with all of our produce, it would have been inspected for spoilage before use.

There were items being loaded from truck to walk-in that were at improper temperatures. I think I talked about this in a previous post. It had to do with bad procedures regarding packing and unpacking. It had nothing to do with “spoiled” food, or food that we were serving customers.

Finally, it is factually incorrect that there was “no one on hand to supervise the kitchen staff.” This was simply not true. We as a company have 45% of all employees, that includes truck closers (folks who drive the trucks back to the HUB and unpack them), trained and certified as Serve-Safe Food Handlers (the certification recognized by the state).

The inspector was referring to the fact that the Person In Charge, a technical term in the food industry, was, in her interpretation, the manager of our restaurant up front. She thought he was physically too far from the activities in the back: unpacking trucks, washing dishes, and packing for the next day. Each of these activities had supervision. They just weren’t supervised by the manager in the front of the restaurant.

I think the inspector made some really good suggestions. For example, we should consider having somebody in the back that coordinates all of those activities, instead of leaders managing their own areas. But this is vastly different than “no one on hand to supervise the kitchen staff.” To be clear, there were supervisors working. There were no kitchen staff working. There was no food prep happening at all in the kitchen. It was a Friday night long after kitchen production had ended.

And, of course, the “Tweleve are sickened by food poisoning at Clover” is factually wrong, potentially damaging, and I think could be considered libel. To be clear. There are Salmonella cases in Boston. We’re concerned that we may have served food that led to some of those. WE DO NOT HAVE EVIDENCE that we did serve that food or that there is “food poisoning at Clover.” We know of 12 cases of Salmonella in this outbreak. Of those we know that 6 ate at Clover, as well as other restaurants, in their days leading up to illness.

I spent a good amount of time on the phone with this particular Globe reporter explaining all of this context yesterday. She had the facts. And instead of reporting the full context, or even strictly what the documents (health inspection reports) said, the Globe posted a misleading headline followed by misleading statements.

And you ask why restaurants wouldn’t want to talk about what’s going on? You ask why there is secrecy around this?

Oh, and above, that’s a picture of the Clover managers getting an update from me about this whole thing.

I have a suggestion for the Globe: what if we all try to use language and communication that help people get closer to the truth, not further from the truth. That’s what we’re trying to do here. And I think that’s what good journalism is about, right?

Recent Posts

May 24, 2023
I recently learned that garlic has 4 stages that it goes through on its journey to become the cured stuff you’re probably used to seeing. This year I learned about Green Garlic. It’s the mild, sweet, un-cured bulb, plus the fresh green shoots. We got our hands on a super limited crop from Red Fire out in Granby, and so we decided to see if we could incorporate it into every single different type of box we make next week…
May 23, 2023
We’ve intentionally steered clear of bowls for a long time. If you see Ayr tomorrow, ask him why : ) Tomorrow (5/24) we’re starting a 2-week test of bowls at CloverNTV, our restaurant in Newtonville. If it goes well, this could represent the beginning of one of the bigger changes our menu has EVER seen. We’re hoping we’ve cracked the code to bowls that are seasonal, carefully-composed, easy to carry, and craveable – all the things we love about bowls, and none of the things we don’t.
May 18, 2023
I used to eat Cheesy Grits almost every morning, and if you were eating with us around 2017, I bet you did too. We took our Plimoth-ground-grits off the menu for a little while, but now they’re back at all locations (except for the HUB for the time being). Stop in for breakfast during the next 2 weeks – we’re aiming for these to be hot and ready at 8am and we’ll be selling them til they’re out. The staff has been waking up extra early and adding a lot of extra whisking to their mornings, so we’d love to hear what you think. If you’ve never had our Cheesy Grits before, here are some things you should know….
May 16, 2023
What is Chris eating? When we toured the field at Siena, the crew was planting dahlia tubers. They get planted in warm soil, will grow all summer and will be ready for harvest in the fall. They reminded us of sunchokes, so we got to talking about whether the tubers are edible and it turns out they are! Are they delicious?
May 15, 2023
Do you want a beautiful box of produce for a fraction of what you’d pay in the grocery store? Do you want to invest in a farm’s success and be with them throughout the harvest season? Do you think you hate eggplants but you’ve just never had a good one? It might be time to look into a CSA (or farmshare).
May 5, 2023
I remember exactly the moment we started celebrating May the 4th (“May the Force” be with you). We were on a planning call about meal boxes and we were talking about how we were going to launch our Taco Tuesday program on Cinco de Mayo (May the 5th). Chris accidentally said “May the 4th” and Ayr said, “May the 4th! We should do a Star Wars Box!”
April 24, 2023
If you’ve been reading for a while you probably know we hate waste. Most of the time, minimizing waste is pretty unglamorous, but every once in a while our mission to reduce waste takes us to some very cool places. I look after Clover’s grocery marketplaces (including our Assembly Row grocery store). A few months ago I noticed that the marketplaces were going through a lot of our paper bags. They’re compostable, which is great. But I think the best bag is one you can use over and over again.
April 22, 2023
Few people know that Clover is environmental activism. This is by design.  And it works. We do these customer surveys and see that 9 out of 10 Clover customers are NOT vegetarian. Yet I’m constantly troubled by conflicting feelings about the approach we’ve taken.
April 10, 2023
Over the next 3 weeks, on a rolling schedule, most Clovers are going to be giving out a free hot or cold George Howell Montecarlos coffee to anyone who stops in between opening and 11 am. No strings— we just want to see you all and talk about coffee!! George Howell’s Montecarlos is a single-origin coffee we love for our pour-overs…
March 30, 2023
Each year, early spring is a busy time at the Clover kitchen because we have 2 of our tastiest boxes, usually back-to-back. For the Passover box, a lot of care goes into the kashering of the kitchen, with Rabbi Dolinger coming in to ensure the box is totally Kosher for Passover via Lighthouse Kosher.
March 15, 2023
That photo is corn fritters drizzled with maple syrup. We just started frying them up for a 2pm special – and they’re an element of our Maple Meal Box. If you head away from the city this time of year, you’ll see signs for sugar shacks, where maple sap gets boiled down into syrup and little restaurants pop up to serve pancakes, corn fritters, cider donuts, and dill pickles (to cut through the sweetness of the fresh syrup).
February 28, 2023
You’ve been asking! And finally we can announce: sunchokes are here, starting tomorrow, 3/1. Thanks to Pete’s Greens in VT for getting us local sunchokes. At breakfast we’ll be making The Sunchoke Truffle: fluffy house-baked pita, creamy truffled butter, caramelized onions, a 6.5 minute egg, and thin, crispy sunchoke slices. At lunch and dinner: The Sunchoke Mushroom: scallion-black-pepper mayo, fresh arugula, roasted crimini mushrooms, fried brined onions, and roasted sunchokes. But what IS a sunchoke?