Shanklin Hotel Kitchen Shut Following Zero-Star Hygiene Rating

A Shanklin hotel has been slammed with a zero-star hygiene rating which saw the kitchen shut, voluntarily, for a week.

Following an inspection last month, Langham Court, on Atherley Road, was handed an ‘Urgent Improvement Necessary’ food hygiene standard by the Isle of Wight Council’s environmental health department.

Among issues, inspectors found multiple items past their use-by date, a poor standard of kitchen hygiene and temperature control issues.

The hotel has since said everything raised by the inspectors was corrected within eight days, including a thorough deep clean, and the hotel was deemed safe to open.

Following the hotel’s own stock rotation and control system, seven items were found to be past their ‘use by’ date including a continental meat and cheese platter — which was seven days past — a turkey joint, cooked lasagne and egg mayonnaise.

A packet of salami was also found with a best before of March 23 that should have been used within two days and boxes of mince pies were stored on the floor of the dry store with a best before date of January 28, 2020.

All the out-of-date food was voluntarily disposed of during the inspection.

Other areas where inspectors found issues included:

• No checks were being made to confirm meat and poultry dishes were being cooked to a safe temperature with a probe thermometer.
• The general standard of hygiene was poor throughout the kitchen and in food storage areas, with a build-up of food debris noted in multiple places and dirty hand contact surfaces.
• Dirty pots and pans were being stored in various locations, the kitchen walls were dirty as were the ovens, toaster and fly screen.
• There was no hot or cold running water nor materials for hand cleaning at the wash hand basin in the kitchen. Inspectors were told it had been out of use for a considerable period of time.
• One staff member did not wash their hands before handling food, at which point service was stopped and hands washed before breakfast was allowed to continue under supervision.
• There was a risk of physical contamination, with one instance finding an open pack of vegan cheese stored among cooked meats.
• Food was being stored on the floor of the walk-in freezer
• The disinfectant being used in the kitchen did not meet British standards and was a cleaner for laundry, hard surfaces and windows, baths and effective against limescale.
• The electric fly killer was not operating and flies were noted in the kitchen.
• There was no evidence to suggest the chef had been provided with instructions on food hygiene policies and practices they should follow and another staff member ‘lacked an appropriate level of knowledge. Inspectors said this was evident when he tried to use the temperature probe but could not work out how to change the display from reading in Fahrenheit to degrees centigrade.

On the day of the inspection, the officer found the chef making cold breakfasts for 50 school children, which had been pre-plated and left out on the kitchen worktops for ‘about ten minutes’.

The temperature of the food — eggs, cheese and meats — was taken by the inspector and must be stored below 8°C although it is recommended they are stored below 5°C. The food was ranging between 10.4°C and 10.9°C.

While the inspector was talking to the chef about the problem, members of staff put the food back in the fridge, as the inspector said ‘they were obviously aware of the issue’.

The food was voluntarily disposed of as there were no records to show how long the food had been out of temperature control.

Inspectors also highlighted some of the problems had been present at a previous inspection of the Langham three years ago and warned if the non-compliance were to continue they would consider further formal action.

A spokesperson for Langham Court said they are awaiting a reinspection for a new score and staff will have ongoing hygiene training, ‘instead of gaining a certificate online and forgetting what they have learnt’.

They also said some of the points raised in the officer’s reports ‘were misunderstandings’.