Health violations hit food
Inspectors, Saga say students shouldn't worry
Nick Tabor
Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: News
Hillsdale Dining Service, Hillsdale College's food service, racked up 15 violations during its January 21 inspection from the Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency.
The service received seven critical violations and eight non-critical violations. It received more critical violations than any other establishment in the county during January and February, said Rebecca Burns, the health agency's director of environmental health.
But SAGA said it fixed many of those problems during the inspection, and employees cleared up the rest before a follow-up inspection on Feb. 14, during which it received a perfect rating, Burns said.
She said the rating should put student minds to rest.
"I would say that students should be concerned only if on our follow-up we found out that there were items that were still out of line," she said.
This is the first time the dining service received an inspection since moving its facilities to the Grewcock Student Union.
President Larry Arnn said he probably made it harder for the dining service's employees to pass the first inspection by pushing them to change buildings earlier than they wanted.
"The point is, we put them under stress because of that," he said. "I made that decision, they didn't."
Since the dining service acts as an independent contractor, Arnn said he and his fellow administration members only monitor the dining service casually by eating lunches there and occasionally walking through the kitchen.
"But the health inspections matter, too," he said.
The agency granted The Collegian copies of both inspection reports through a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The dining service initially received violations for using expired food, storing food near toxic chemicals, serving food at unsafe temperatures, failing to mark the use-by dates on products, and for an employee's hair exposed in the kitchen, among other reasons.
Saga, Inc., General Manager Kevin Kirwan accepted responsibility for most of the violations, but he said most of them represented "procedural issues" instead of real dangers.
The service received seven critical violations and eight non-critical violations. It received more critical violations than any other establishment in the county during January and February, said Rebecca Burns, the health agency's director of environmental health.
But SAGA said it fixed many of those problems during the inspection, and employees cleared up the rest before a follow-up inspection on Feb. 14, during which it received a perfect rating, Burns said.
She said the rating should put student minds to rest.
"I would say that students should be concerned only if on our follow-up we found out that there were items that were still out of line," she said.
This is the first time the dining service received an inspection since moving its facilities to the Grewcock Student Union.
President Larry Arnn said he probably made it harder for the dining service's employees to pass the first inspection by pushing them to change buildings earlier than they wanted.
"The point is, we put them under stress because of that," he said. "I made that decision, they didn't."
Since the dining service acts as an independent contractor, Arnn said he and his fellow administration members only monitor the dining service casually by eating lunches there and occasionally walking through the kitchen.
"But the health inspections matter, too," he said.
The agency granted The Collegian copies of both inspection reports through a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The dining service initially received violations for using expired food, storing food near toxic chemicals, serving food at unsafe temperatures, failing to mark the use-by dates on products, and for an employee's hair exposed in the kitchen, among other reasons.
Saga, Inc., General Manager Kevin Kirwan accepted responsibility for most of the violations, but he said most of them represented "procedural issues" instead of real dangers.
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Michael Smith
Michael Smith
posted 4/03/08 @ 5:43 PM EST
Saga has great food! And since they took care of the violations, I'm not worried at all.
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