FDA finds little handwashing, dirty equipment at McDonald's supplier linked to E. coli outbreak

Food and Drug Administration officials turned up dozens of violations at a McDonald's supplier linked to a deadly outbreak of E. coli that led to more than a hundred infections and a sweeping recall of onions used in the fast food chain's products, including its Quarter Pounder burgers. 

The violations, detailed in an inspection report released to CBS News in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, were seen during an inspection of a food production facility in Colorado run by Taylor Farms. 

Their findings amounted to the FDA issuing the McDonald's supplier a so-called Form 483, a list of citations over conditions inspectors worried could be "injurious to health."

That facility had been tasked with supplying "slivered onions" to McDonald's restaurants across a broad swath of states. Taylor Farms also produces a number of other products, including salads it sells in grocery stores as safe and ready to eat.

For restaurants, Taylor Farms bills its products as a "prep-less kitchen solution," allowing food service workers to skip the usual preparation steps they would need to use with ordinary produce that should be washed and cut before eating.

"We hold our suppliers to the highest expectations and standards of food safety. Prior to this inspection, and unrelated to its findings, McDonald's stopped sourcing from Taylor Farms' Colorado Springs facility," McDonald's said in a statement.

The company pointed to its October announcement following the outbreak that it would stop buying onions from Taylor Farms in Colorado "indefinitely," switching suppliers for some 900 restaurants that had relied on the plant.

"Taylor Farms is confident in our best-in-class food safety processes, and in turn, the quality and safety of our products. As is common following an inspection, FDA issued observations of conditions that could be improved at one of our facilities," Taylor Farms said in a statement. 

The company "immediately took steps to address" the issues, the statement said, and added that the FDA classified the inspection as not resulting in "administrative or regulatory action" against the company.

"This is consistent with the fact that no illnesses or public health threat has been linked to these observations," Taylor Farms said. 

Taylor Farms ultimately recalled thousands of cases of ready-to-eat onions that it had distributed to food service facilities in six states following the outbreak. 

At least 104 cases of E. coli infections were linked to the outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 34 hospitalizations and one death. 

"Should have been marked as a 'fail'"

FDA inspectors said they discovered "numerous equipment with apparent biofilm and large amounts of food debris" around the Taylor Farms facility in Colorado Springs, even after workers had supposedly completed their required cleaning procedures. 

The FDA said that Taylor Farms quality control officials had signed off on cleaning at the facility as passing, even when agency inspectors said they could still see "several food contact surfaces that were not visually clean and should have been marked as a 'Fail'."

Food debris building up on the company's equipment was so bad that it was leading to cross-contamination, the FDA's inspectors worried. A company that had been buying green peppers from Taylor Farms complained that onions had found their way into their ready-to-eat product.

Workers were also cutting corners on required sanitation steps for themselves, the FDA's inspectors alleged. 

Staff at the McDonald's supplier only "sometimes" used hand sanitizer when handling food that was supposed to be ready-to-eat or "RTE," as the industry calls it, on their gloved hands.

"Production employees handling RTE produce and food contact surfaces were not observed using any of the handwashing sinks in the facility," the FDA's inspectors wrote.

"Equipment is constantly wet"

The FDA's inspectors also discovered Taylor Farms was frequently skipping the drying step after dunking tools into a solution of sanitizing chemicals, which inspectors feared was resulting in the solution being "directly applied" to ready-to-eat produce.

"Equipment is constantly wet due to the wet processing environment and cold temperatures," agency inspectors wrote. 

Instructions from the manufacturer of the cleaning solution urged users to air-dry sanitized utensils, the FDA said.

FDA officials also worried about how staff were cooking up the cleaning chemical mixtures that they were using. 

Some solutions tested above the maximum concentration of chemicals that were allowed, while the company wasn't sure how it came up for the recipe of another cleaning concoction it was using that FDA inspectors questioned.

"Management could not provide a manufacturer label and/or manufacturers/chemical representatives claiming that mixing these chemicals listed above was designed for this use," inspectors said.