Flour Safety: Don’t Let E. coli become the Secret Ingredient in your Cake.
Earlier this month, we started to see information coming out about a foodborne illness outbreak from an unlikely source – flour. As of early-April, 12 people had fallen ill, and three people had been hospitalized as a result of flour contaminated with Salmonella. While the outbreak is still in its early stages, no individuals have died because of their illness. A specific source has not yet been identified in the outbreak, but all who have fallen ill have reported eating raw batter or dough due before developing symptoms – and flour has been identified as the only common ingredient in these batters and doughs.
Perhaps this isn’t a surprise if you pay attention to outbreaks and the foods implicated in those outbreaks. But for some of you it may come as a surprise. Who among us didn’t grow up begging mom for some cookie dough as she was making chocolate chip cookies?
Consuming raw cookie dough (or any dough or batter) has always been risky. I remember my mother warning my brother, sister, and I about the raw egg in the product. But, more and more, we are seeing evidence that consuming raw dough of any sort may very well be a terrible idea – especially for young children. While raw eggs are still a concern, the raw flour used in these products has become almost as problematic. Both E. Coli and Salmonella have been implicated in recent flour outbreaks. Between 2017 and 2022, there were appropriately 22 recalls involving flour.
… recent outbreaks help illustrate the reason why flour should be treated just as we would treat any potentially hazardous food product in our kitchens.
Contrary to the belief of many, raw flour is not a ready to eat food. In fact, Consumer Reports recently noted that flour was among the top 10 risky recalled foods. These recent outbreaks help illustrate the reason why flour should be treated just as we would treat any potentially hazardous food product in our kitchens.
I have received questions over the last several years about the causes of the flour outbreaks. Sure, most who have reached out know that E. Coli or Salmonella is the agent that caused the outbreak, but how did the flour become contaminated with these bacteria? While it is incredibly hard to say the exact method by which the flour was contaminated, it most likely occurred in the field. While most farmers make use of the best methods available to follow Good Agricultural Practices, it is always possible that wheat in the field could become contaminated when it comes into contact with animal feces, contaminated irrigation water, or run off from near-by pastures and fields. Once contaminated, the processing of flour does not normally include a pathogen reduction step, such as heat treating, to kill the bacteria so it is easy to see how the contaminated flour may find its way into your kitchen.
So, what can you do to protect your guests and your business? Treat flour like it is potentially hazard food because it really is! If you run a bakery or make bakery products in your operation, be sure to sanitize the work surfaces before and after using it. Eliminate cross contamination just as you would do with a meat or poultry product. Don’t allow employees to eat raw dough or batters, and make sure you don’t have any recipes (such as truffles, icing, or cookies) which involve flour but no kill step before serving. Last, don’t serve raw cookie dough in ice creams or other desserts without making sure that the product is an edible cookie dough made with heat-treated flour and pasteurized or no eggs. Risk Nothing.
Foodborne Illness Myths & Facts
“It must have been something I ate.” That’s the typical statement when a person develops some relatively minor symptoms from food. Maybe not severe enough to go to the doctor so you choose to tough it out without medical care. Sudden onset of flu-like symptoms such as onset of stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and fever could possibly mean you are the victim of a foodborne illness. The illness is sometimes referred to as “food poisoning”, but it’s often misdiagnosed.
Don’t Compromise: Clean and Sanitize
The subject is cleaning and sanitizing. Chefs, food service directors, managers and staff try to practice safe food-handling at every turn in the kitchen. Don’t let that effort go down the drain by slacking off on the many aspects of sanitation. That includes dish and ware-washing techniques (pots, pans, equipment), and cleaning all the areas that give us that “neat as a pin” appearance in your customers eyes. Customers seldom fail to bring that soiled silverware or glass with lipstick on it to the attention of the manager or wait staff. Improperly cleaning and sanitizing of food contact equipment does allow transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to food and ultimately our customer.
The Route to Safer Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Although fruits and vegetables are one of the healthiest foods sources in our diet, we continue to have foodborne disease outbreaks of significance from produce, sometimes affecting large groups of people in multiple states because of their wide distribution. The CDC estimates that fresh produce now causes a huge number of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. Produce needs our continued food safety efforts at the restaurant level as well as at the stages in agricultural production. Occasionally, fresh fruits and vegetables can become contaminated with harmful bacteria or viruses, such as Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7, Norovirus, and Hepatitis A. This contamination can occur at any point from the field to our table. If eaten, contaminated fruits and vegetables can cause foodborne illness.
Be Cool, Chill Out, Refrigerate Promptly!
The Cold Chain -- Keeping perishable foods at proper cold holding temperatures (between 28°F and 41°F maximum or 0°F for frozen food) from your food producers / manufacturers to your customers has to be one of our strongest links to safe food and high quality. Sometimes that is referred to in the food industry as “maintaining the COLD CHAIN”. Any slip ups in the cold chain, and we have a weak link. Most all of our state food regulations require 41°F as a cold maximum, but colder is a “best practice” policy to maintain.
