By Cam Lucadou-Wells
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has lifted the closure orders imposed on Dandenong South commercial caterer iCook Foods after a food poisoning scare.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Dr Brett Sutton revoked the shutdown order on 28 March – two days after iCook Foods appeared in court claiming it had been unjustly blamed for an elderly hospital patient’s death on 4 February.
According to laboratory tests, the sandwiches in question were technically safe, the company argues.
In a statement, Dr Sutton said he was satisfied that required changes had been made to food handling processes to support the production of safe food.
“The department has worked with the company since the closure to identify and rectify concerns which it believed compromised the production of food safe from the risk of contamination.
“Dr Sutton will ask the Greater Dandenong Council to increase its food safety assessments at the premises and implement a food and environmental sampling plan.”
iCook Foods director Ian Cook says the company is being forced to operate under impossibly “onerous” conditions – in which its sandwiches had to be lab-tested before they could be delivered and sold.
The three-day testing period would mean that the food’s safe shelf-life would expire, he said.
Meanwhile, the month-long shutdown and adverse publicity led to supply contracts for Meals on Wheels and seven Healthscope private hospitals being severed, director Ian Cook said.
In effect, the 35-year-old family business with an “unblemished record” had been ruined.
“(The DHHS) statement did avoid the fact that I had nothing to do with the patient’s death.
“They are changing the goal posts after they got it so terribly wrong.
“They were so sure that we killed that woman – they got a terrific bit of media, whipped up a storm about Meals on Wheels and the (laboratory) tests didn’t come through.”
Dr Sutton said the 21 February closure order was imposed due to the link between the patient’s death and iCook Foods’ products.
She had been diagnosed with listerioris, which is normally associated with food contamination, the department stated.
A DHHS spokesperson recently told Star News that “the test result … is only one of a number of samples which were taken and analysed”.
“Genomic sequencing has shown a strong link between food samples from iCook Foods and the elderly woman who died in a private hospital in the eastern suburbs.”
