An investigation into a food poisoning outbreak at a University of Canterbury hall found temperature records were falsified by the Students’ Association who prepared the meals.<\/p>\n
The association has admitted responsibility for the outbreak and is due to be sentenced in December.<\/p>\n
More than 160 cases of food poisoning symptoms were reported following a chicken souvlaki dinner at Canterbury University’s Uni Lodge Hall during exams in November 2024.<\/p>\n
The University of Canterbury Students’ Association (UCSA) is responsible for the food for 500 halls of residence students, as well as a site in Edmonton, where 6000 meals are prepared for schools each week.<\/p>\n
Food safety inspectors found the Students’ Association did not follow its food control plan and record the temperature of the chicken at the time – with handwritten temperatures found to have been recorded after the fact.<\/p>\n
They also found the association was not ensuring food was being kept hot and cooled in accordance with its food plan.<\/p>\n
Court records show UCSA chefs at Uni Lodge Hall batch-cooked around 50 kilograms of chicken on October 31, 2024.<\/p>\n
It was split into two tubs, with some served that evening for a chicken and vegetable stir fry and the other half blast chilled and put into a fridge.<\/p>\n
Three days later, the pre-cooked chicken was prepared for dinner as chicken souvlaki and placed on a rolling boil for three and a half hours. It was then put into containers for meal service and put out buffet style for the students.<\/p>\n
That night, 164 students who dined at Uni Lodge Hall became ill with gasteroenteritis symptoms including diarrhoea, stomach pain, low grade fever and vomiting.<\/p>\n
Samples provided by some students for lab testing were positive for the Clostridium perfringens bacteria.<\/p>\n
The illness usually follows the consumption of food that has been kept at unsafe temperatures for too long.<\/p>\n
A Health NZ survey of the affected students found 95 percent had consumed chicken souvlaki for dinner before falling ill.<\/p>\n
Epidemiological, laboratory and environmental investigations found the cause of the outbreak was the souvlaki chicken meal served on November 3, 2024.<\/p>\n
At some point between when it was first cooked, blast cooled and then the rolling boil reheat, it had become contaminated and was unsafe for human consumption.<\/p>\n
The USCA was issued a food control plan by Christchurch City Council that sets out minimum requirements to ensure compliance with food safety rules.<\/p>\n
That includes recording temperatures when food is first cooked and when being cooled for refrigeration to ensure safe temperatures have been reached.<\/p>\n
The investigation into the outbreak found USCA staff were not ensuring the correct hot holding and cooling of foods, or fully conforming with staff training records.<\/p>\n
During the period when the chicken was prepared, the records were either missing or not completed.<\/p>\n
In response to a visit by food safety inspectors, handwritten temperature records from 1 to 3 November were supplied by a UCSA staff member, but they were found not to have been taken over the weekend, but written after the fact.<\/p>\n
There was also no evidence of internal audits being conducted by UCSA in the previous 12 months as required by its food control plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigation into a food poisoning outbreak at a University of Canterbury hall found temperature records were falsified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-493161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}