Waukesha Health Officials Inspect Four Restaurants After Cyclospora Alert, Find No Contamination

WAUKESHA — The Waukesha County Health Department conducted unannounced inspections at four local food establishments this week following a CDC alert about cyclospora contamination tied to bagged produce shipments affecting suppliers in 47 states, and found no evidence of contamination at any of them, though one location parted with roughly $400 in prepped salad ingredients rather than take any chances.

Inspectors visited the Culver's on Sunset Drive, the Piggly Wiggly on East Sunset Drive, the Piggly Wiggly on North Grand Avenue, and Bella's Cafe on Main Street between Tuesday and Thursday, spending an average of 41 minutes at each stop reviewing invoices, bills of lading, and refrigeration logs in an effort to trace incoming produce back to its point of origin. Health Officer Margaret Stearns, 56, said the department was specifically tracking whether any local supplier had received shipments from a distribution hub in Salinas, California, that the CDC had flagged as a possible common point in the outbreak.

"None of our four establishments sourced from that hub," Stearns said. "We were able to confirm that through paperwork alone, which is honestly the best-case scenario for an inspection like this." Stearns said the department had planned to visit a fifth location, a produce stand at the Wednesday farmers market on the Fox River, but the inspector assigned to the route missed the turn onto East Avenue and, after two loops through the one-way grid downtown, arrived after the stand had already closed for the day.

"Residents should remain vigilant but not panicked. Right now this is a currently theoretical rather than actual risk in Waukesha."

— Margaret Stearns, 56, Waukesha County Health Officer

Culver's Discarded Three Batches As A Precaution

The lone precautionary measure of the week came at the Sunset Drive Culver's, where shift manager Danny Reyes, 24, said he discarded three batches of prepped lettuce and diced tomato, roughly 18 pounds total, after an inspector asked to see the invoice for that morning's produce delivery and Reyes couldn't locate it immediately. "By the time I found the invoice in the office printer tray, I'd already thrown the stuff out," Reyes said. "In hindsight the invoice was fine. But I wasn't going to serve twelve dollars of salad on a bet."

Stearns said the discarded batches were never tested and their disposal was not required by her office, calling the decision "an abundance of caution that we neither asked for nor discouraged." She estimated the lost inventory at "approximately $400," a figure Reyes disputed slightly, putting it closer to $380 once he accounted for the tomatoes separately from the lettuce.

At the two Piggly Wiggly locations, inspectors focused on the stores' bagged salad mix and pre-cut cantaloupe displays, both categories the CDC alert specifically named. Produce manager Terry Klug, 49, of the East Sunset Drive location, walked the inspector through the store's rotation log by hand because the store's inventory software had been down since Monday for what Klug described only as "a router thing." No irregularities were found in either store's supply chain, and no product was pulled from shelves.

Bella's Cafe on Main Street, the final stop, drew a shorter visit, 22 minutes, largely because owner Priya Deshmukh, 44, keeps produce invoices in a single binder by the register that she said she updates "religiously, because my mother ran a restaurant and she'd come back and haunt me if I didn't." The inspector reviewed the binder, checked the walk-in cooler's temperature log, and left without further comment.

Stearns said the department has no plans for additional cyclospora-specific inspections in Waukesha County unless the CDC's list of affected states or distribution hubs grows, but that routine, unannounced food-safety checks would continue on their normal schedule. She said residents who are concerned about produce safety should ask their local grocer or restaurant where their vegetables come from, "though I'll be honest, most cashiers won't know, and that's fine. That's not really their job."

Residents with food-safety concerns can contact the Waukesha County Health Department directly rather than waiting for the next round of unannounced inspections.