How safe is your grocery store?

Lea Thompson Chief consumer correspondent • Profile

Americans spend nearly half a trillion dollars a year in the supermarket. In fact, most of us make a trip to the grocery store twice a week. While we wouldn’t shop in a store we didn’t think was safe (and there are tens of thousands of stores across the country that handle food safely), if there is one thing we’ve learned in Dateline’s year-long “Supermarket Sweep,” it’s that you can’t assume your grocery is as clean as it should be.

"I think the industry is trying to make certain that they are as clean and as safe as they can possibly be," says Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco. "Everyone realizes that perfection is not possible—we’re all fallible."

Health inspectors showed us some photos of extreme examples  of some pretty disgusting and unhealthy conditions out there: a dead rat decaying next to a cooler in Chicago, even a cockroach in a store-baked cookie.

It’s tough to know how many people get sick from supermarket food— often it’s not very serious, perhaps a case of what seems like the flu. People often don’t report food poisoning and if they do, it can still be hard to trace its source.

But we do know food poisoning in general is a big problem in this country. The government’s Centers for Disease control estimates 5,000 people die and more than 70 million people get sick each year. 

So what can you do to lower your risk of getting sick? One way to do it is to research your supermarket’s safety record by checking the reports filed by health inspectors— but few people have  time to track down those reports. So Dateline has done some legwork for you. Using those reports, we decided to  rank the top 10 grocery chains in the country. We’re calling it the Dateline “Supermarkets Sweep.”

A hidden camera report
We took our hidden cameras to 18 stores across the country whose health inspection reports indicated they had a history of critical violations. 

According to the food safety expert we interviewed, Jeffrey Nelken, a critical violation  is usually defined as a “violation that could cause harm to a person.” Simply, something that could make you sick. Nelken advises supermarkets and teaches their employees how to handle food. He agreed to look at what we found.

In Texas, we found bags of dusty chips stored on the floor and a couple of dead flies drowned in a soup of spilled orange juice. In North Carolina, lots more grime: blood spilled in a meat tray, and an unidentifiable product under a shelf.

While muck like that is not always considered a critical violation in every jurisdiction, it is definitely troubling to Nelken.

Jeffrey Nelken, food safety expert: That just shows you that they aren’t doing any basic cleaning and there could be a lot of mold building up here and bacteria that you now bring with you into the home after you pick this stuff up.

Lea Thompson, Dateline correspondent: And bug.s

Nelken: And bugs.

We did see lots of bugs— like a moth we caught in a store in Texas, or some fruit flies that came home with us on a piece of fruit in Florida.

Thompson:  Does that send up a red flag?

Nelken: Absolutely. Flies for example may carry bacteria and roaches carry up to 25 to 30 different diseases.

At one store in New York, we saw signs of other uninvited guests— we saw mouse traps.

Nelken: If there are signs of pests in the facility, that would be a critical violation.

But it is not just filth and grime and pests inspectors worry about. Bacteria can grow just as easily in a refrigerated unit if it’s not kept at the right temperature.

Nelken:  The holding of food at 41 degrees or below prevents micro and bacterial growth from occurring.

But Dateline thermometers found food being kept either not cold enough or not hot enough at 4 out of the 18 stores we visited. Food like fresh fish on sale in Texas was at least five degrees too warm. We saw some fried chicken in Georgia was not being kept hot enough to keep bacteria from growing. It needed to be 30 degrees warmer.

It’s also a critical violation in some states to sell products past their “sell by” date. But we found plenty, like expired milk, days old, and deli meat weeks past the use by date. Most alarming, we also found a whole row of expired infant formula.

Another serious violation? The hot water in the bathrooms at one Georgia store turned off after a few seconds. The hottest we could get was just over 70 degrees. The federal food code  recommends employees to wash their hands in at least 110 degree water after going to the bathroom.

Nelken: Good example might be if you ever had cold water at home and you tried washing some pots with cold water. How did that work?

Thompson: Not very well.

Nelken: And that’s exactly what happens on the hands.

All in all, our shopping expedition uncovered what inspectors would call critical violations — problems that could make you sick — in 11 of the 18 stores we visited. And unlike inspectors, we didn’t even get a chance to go behind the scenes to see how food was being handled.

We knew the only way to really rank the cleanliness and safety of your favorite supermarket was to look at every health inspection report over a whole year’s period for dozens of stores in each chain.

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