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Nagging Question
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Do Bulk Bins Ever Get Cleaned?Money-saving convenience meets bacteria-harboring menace |
Buying foods like beans and grains from bulk bins can save you money, but Chowhounds have raised a good question about the practice: Just how often do the bins get cleaned out?
“There are no federal standards for cleaning or maintenance of bulk bins,” says Jennifer Foley, the marketing and membership manager at Berkshire Co-op Market in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
“Cleaning frequency and procedures are dictated by health departments at the state and sometimes even the municipal level, so [they] vary,” confirms Libba Letton, a spokesperson for Whole Foods Market. Chicago’s code, for example, requires that scoops and bins be “cleaned and sanitized” every 12 hours, while San Francisco County code doesn’t call for any specific regimen particular to bulk bins, just that “The floors, sidewalks, ceilings, furniture, receptacles, utensils, implements and machinery of every … place where food is … stored commercially in opened or unopened containers, sold or distributed shall at all times be kept in a healthful and in a sanitary condition.”
Letton says that Whole Foods’ company policy is that “at the very least, the bins will be cleaned once every four weeks, when they are all emptied and their contents weighed for inventory purposes.” She says they are cleaned with a National Organic Standards–approved sanitizer, rinsed thoroughly, and dried. The scoops are cleaned at least once daily. She says the markets also have a third-party firm perform monthly inspections to look for proper food safety and hygiene.
Since bulk bins aren’t consistently regulated, it’s best to buy your bulk items from a grocer that you trust and that has good turnover, and to ask how the store maintains the section if you are concerned. You can also evaluate a store’s bulk section yourself with an eye for the following:
• In most bulk departments you’ll see both scoop and gravity-fed bins (those are the ones that dispense product into your bag when you open them from the bottom). Buy from the gravity-fed bins when you can, because they force the stock to be constantly rotated by dispensing the older stuff first. They also minimize people’s contact with the food since you don’t have to reach into them.
• Look at the tops of the bins to make sure there is no dust on them.
• If your store is using scoop bins, try to scope out the condition of the product at the bottom (look through the side or from the front at eye level). If the store is just putting new stock on top of the old stock without cleaning, you’ll see a buildup of crushed old product. “If you see over an inch or two of this old ‘dust’ then you know that nobody has taken the time to clean the bins in a while,” says Foley.
"They also minimize people’s contact with the food since you don’t have to reach into them."
so what? You're not going to get AIDS from a bulk food bin..
I just love hair and foreign food particles in my scooped granola; extra protein!
"Letton says that Whole Foods’ company policy is that “at the very least, the bins will be cleaned once every four weeks, when they are all emptied and their contents weighed for inventory purposes.”"
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i asked someone about this at my local WFM a few months ago and got a very different answer. he said they clean the bins on a rotating schedule, and each one "probably" gets a thorough cleaning once every three or four months.
Hi goodhealthgourmet--
I contacted Libba Letton regarding your comment to see what was up.
She said: "If you want to pass along which store you were in, we can make sure that the Team Members there are updated on what our national standard is. It could be that the Team Member you spoke to is not himself fully aware of the frequency of the bin cleaning in his store, depending on his hours and his duties. Our policy, as we said before, is to clean bins AT LEAST once every four weeks – if that’s not happening somewhere, we want to know about it to make sure it does!"
Thanks for reading and commenting!
-Roxanne Webber of CHOW.com
re: luniz
There are a lot of other diseases that you can get by touching contaminated food or surfaces, e.g. Hepatitis A. The flu is also easily spread as is the norovirus and many other nasty bugs. They are not only unpleasant, but can be DEADLY for certain people, such as infants and young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and others with compromised immune systems.
It makes me sad to think that there are so many people out there that actually think they're the only Truly Clean Being on earth, and being so precious they feel they need and deserve a sterilized and shrink-wrapped world.
In other words, luniz is absolutely right.
Roxanne: it's the Edgewater, NJ store if you want to pass it along to Ms. Letton. to be honest, i wasn't surprised that they do it so infrequently. that store's a disaster. the dairy guys hide when they see me coming toward them because they know i'm about to drag them over to the refrigerated case to point out all the expired product on the shelves...and i regularly find inaccurate and mismatched labels at the salad & hot food bars, and sometimes even in the case at the prepared foods counter.
How did Great Barrington get in this article? Shout-out!
EWSflash,
I don't expect the world to be sterilized and shrink wrapped, but I do expect the food that I buy and consume to be as safe as possible. Having worked in the industry for almost twenty years, it is not unreasonable to expect food to be kept in a clean and sanitary manner.
One of my good friends has had a double organ transplant at age 32. As a result of the transplant, he is immunocompromised and can get sick easily if proper precautions are not taken. Should I tell him to get over it and just deal with it, because you think it is "sad". EWSflash please think about issues reasonably before you post.
When I worked at a local Sonoma County "gourmet market", I explained to the manager in charge of their bulk bins that they could not place gluten-free flour items right next to, for example, whole wheat flour. Contamination would happen so very easily.
He gave me a look like I was either crazy or overly cautious or both. He did not correct the problem.
I worked at a popular health food store for 2 years mostly in produce, refridge and groceries. We would clean out one row of bins once a week. Take them outside dump them etc...
The problem is the spoons. I've seen many employees take just about any old rag and clean the spoons off. Heck even if you use a new rag when you start what will scoop 20 be like when 1-19's stuff hits it.
I saw TONS of customers eating from the bins all the time. Just putting their hands right in there.
I NEVER buy food from scoop bins. Only gravity bins. Just letting you know.
Anyone who is worried about the "bacteria" getting into the bins of bulk food have obviusly never seen the way Grains, beans. seeds and other foods of this nature are harvested, stored and handled! The very growing of the food take place in a septic environment. The harvesting process is very dusty, and the bins that the grains etc go into on the harvesters are left out in the weather, likely as not all year around. Any farmer I know of would laugh if you told him he should clean his combine hopper before doing the harvest. the grains are then transfered to open bed trucks and hauled to the silos, or somtimes even stored on the ground for a while. Rats mice and insect get ito the product while in storage. That is why the USDA has a limit (Not zero) for rat and mice feces, and insect parts. Wether you buy bulk, plactic bagged, of processed flours etc, those are going to be there. Harping about the small contribution of open bins is making a mountain out of a mole hill considering the overall picture/
Having spent 22 years in retail grocery I offer this.
The bulk food suppliers I have dealt with merchandise their own product. The rotation is good and the bins are well maintained.
If they were not, the infestation problem (mostly pantry moths) would be huge.
I wonder whether shopping baskets ever get cleaned as they are so often filthy, even in nice stores in nice neighborhoods.
There are shopping cart cleaning companies--they use a pressure washer method with hot water and detergent on the stacks of carts. Not very often though. Probably only when customers start to complain. So speak up!