Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E124
===

[00:00:00] Francine: And he starts talking about when they take the plates back to the kitchen, they'll pick the crab, the leftover crab off the plates. And that's what they use to make their cream of crab and their crab a grotten and the crab and pure. And I am trying very hard to have a discussion and. This can't be done and not react personally because that's what I eat.

[00:00:35] Matt: You just, you just found out that your favorite meal at your favorite restaurant is like being picked off of other people's plates and stuck on yours.

[00:00:44] Francine: Is he exaggerating? Am I eating somebody's leftover food?

[00:00:49] Matt: Wow.

[00:00:56] Intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. [00:01:00] That's why heroes, toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't eat poop.

[00:01:20] Matt: Don't eat poop. Hello? Hello, Francine. Matt? Matt, you feeling good this morning? Feeling strong. I asked Francine if she was working out and she looked at me like I was crazy. Your workout is loving on the dogs, right? Yes. Do you ever try to lift those 300 pound monsters?

[00:01:42] Francine: No, I get when I couldn't lift it, one of them will put her front feet up on the bed and turn around and look at you like, I need help getting the rest of the way.

She does not need help. She can get up on the bed if she want, or in the car, in the car. She'll put her [00:02:00] front poles up on the seat and turn around and look at you like, I need you to lift me the rest of the way up. I stopped lifting her when she was like a little over a hundred pounds. I can't lift her back.

End up. She's perfectly capable of getting up there herself. They're so damn spoiled that they'll just, they want you to help that in the vehicle up on the bed. They's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Tim will lift them up or her up and then her, the younger one started it. We're like Uhuh. No,

[00:02:35] Matt: you need to jump up there.

Well, today Francine and I have a very interesting topic. We sure do. Francine sent this to me in a text message the other day and I was like, what the heck?

[00:02:50] Francine: The stuff that we see and read and come across is just. Insane. Insane, horrible. I [00:03:00] think

[00:03:00] Matt: social media

[00:03:00] Francine: makes these things worse. Oh, a hundred percent.

Well, I don't believe that it's that these things didn't happen before. We're more aware, and it certainly travels faster now, and there's much more of an awareness and some things absolutely become more embellished. This, I don't believe was embellished because it was of the way it was reported, it wasn't pulled off social media.

[00:03:31] Matt: Okay. For those of you who have watched the movie Waiting, it's a restaurant movie with Ryan Reynolds, one of my favorite actors actually. I shouldn't say that. Ryan Reynolds is my favorite actor. If you've been listening to this show long enough, you can understand why Ryan Reynolds is one of my favorite or is my favorite actor.

I went to a movie with my kids and the trailer for Pokemon comes up and I looked at my wife and I was like, oh my God, my kids are gonna wanna see this movie [00:04:00] Pokemon, and I do not want to see this movie Pokemon. I know nothing about Pokemon. I do not wanna see this movie Pokemon. Then I hear. That the Pokemon is Ryan Reynolds.

I just tell her with the voice and then I looked at my wife and I was like, ah, expletive, it looks like I'm gonna go see Pokemon. And so anything that Ryan Reynolds is in, I will watch that. I know nothing about soccer, but became a soccer fan because of welcome to Rex, him. Literally follow Reham because of Ryan Reynolds.

Just to give you an idea, this movie Waiting is an absolutely terrible movie and I loved every second of it, but it's a terrible movie and the the stuff that happens in the back in the kitchen, I worked at a restaurant, so I could tell you that not all of these things were done in that restaurant, but definitely some of these things were done in that restaurant.[00:05:00]

Social media, and when I say worked in a restaurant, like I worked in a restaurant in high school and college, social media I think and stuff have propelled this. Now we're gonna launch into this story. After reviews,

[00:05:16] Francine: people will do things

[00:05:18] Matt: for views or for dates. I guess Grindr is like a gay online app, is that right?

I don't even know. I

[00:05:26] Francine: don't even know that it's a dating app or if it's just a hookup app. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it is for gay L-G-B-T-Q that it's, yes, that's what it is. Never did I ever think that I would see food safety news and Grindr.

How did this happen?

[00:05:51] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. So those of you who don't know. Grindr is like a, oh my gosh. This goes to, I mean, I've been [00:06:00] married since basically high school. My wife and I, within the first couple dates of dating after grad night knew we were gonna get married. We were friends for two years before we started dating.

So to give you an idea of my understanding of the dating world is. Very minute only what I did in high school dating then, like I, I met my wife when we were 15. We started dating when we were 18, got engaged when we were 19. Married when we were 20. So yeah, I'm learning things as we're going through this.

But yes, I looked online, so this is totally jacking up my algorithm for Google. Thank you. Food safety news.

[00:06:40] Francine: I dunno how I know this. If you were to ask me how I know this, I, you know,

[00:06:44] Matt: everything Fran.

[00:06:46] Francine: How I know this? I, I'm happily married woman. I dunno how I know this, but I do know.

[00:06:56] Matt: Yeah, I happily married to a man, but obviously what's [00:07:00] going on, Grindr for some fun or what?

Franzi,

[00:07:02] Francine: I think that I read a lot and I read such a variety of things. If it pops up on my screen because an article that's in whatever newspaper or whatever, I read it. So, and then there goes my algorithm.

[00:07:24] Matt: Okay. So everybody who's listening to this show is going, what the hell are they gonna talk about today?

Food Safety News and Grindr, and the waiting movie. What? What is going on? What is going on? Okay. So there is a very popular restaurant in Johnson County, Kansas, and so those of you who don't know how Kansas City works, about 75% of Kansas City is in Missouri. The other 25% is in Kansas City. Then the surrounding area, like the G, like the nice suburbs of Kansas City are in what is called [00:08:00] Johnson County, Kansas.

I know this because my wife lived there, and we go there like. Almost every year for Thanksgiving and all this different type of stuff, and we've been doing it for years. Beautiful, beautiful area. I actually know this restaurant because it is like a very popular high end steakhouse. So when people come from out of town or whatever, you're celebrating something.

You go to this restaurant, hair Ford House. It's a great restaurant. By the way, this little mishap, it was this little mishap. Ruin their reputation for a bit. I, I'm not quite sure if it will kill that restaurant. I, I'll go back and eat at this restaurant. I think they're, they're hiring practices are gonna give you a little better after this mishap here.

But here we'll give you the, the context. Okay. So the article name on Food Safety News is, man in Kansas Plead Guilty to Contaminating Food at Upscale Restaurant. Okay, that's a pretty bland title for the [00:09:00] actual article. So when Francine sends this to me, I was like. Okay, this is interesting. And then I open up the article and I start reading it and I'm like, what WTF, what is going on here?

Okay, so here's the context. A man named Jace Hansen, a 22-year-old man, he's a boy. I looked at this picture. He looks like a kid. Looks like a creepy kid too. Is charged with 22 counts of criminal threat involving food at an upscale Kansas City area restaurant, and is pleaded guilty. He pleaded guilty to 22 counts and each count is at least $25,000.

And then 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a child possession of child pornography. This. The child pornography thing is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Like for me, like I think we should [00:10:00] have the death penalty still. Just to give you a little insight on some of my extreme politics, we should have the death penalty and it should be for child rapists and child molesters and stuff like that.

Just dealing in the foster care industry and just seeing this firsthand of what this does to to children, these people should not exist in our world. I know some people hate the death penalty. I would use it just for that, just for people who molest rape children. It is disgusting to me. Got pretty strong opinions about what we should do to those people.

It's probably best I not discuss them. Okay. Anyways, that's not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about food safety. This guy is creepy. This, this is bad. What he did. Okay, this is so bad. So a man, he was employed at this restaurant Hereford house from March 26th to April 25th, 2024. So he was there for a [00:11:00] month and the amount of crazy crap this guy was able to accomplish in a month is fascinating.

Yeah. So he pleaded to all these counts in September of 2024, more than 130 people reported becoming ill after eating at the restaurant. Hansen allegedly posted videos online showing himself contaminating food in various ways, though he posted this online. An FBI Tipster said the video showed Hansen spitting in food, urinating on food, stomping on food, and rubbing food on his body.

On his body. Francine, what do you, where do you think he was rubbing this food? Oh, that's

[00:11:50] Francine: so cringe worthy. Like, oh,

[00:11:54] Matt: well, I'll give you a hint. For those of you who don't have crazy minds, [00:12:00] including his genitalia, you can't make this stuff up. He was literally rubbing food. On himself. Himself. Yeah. So obviously some patrons of this restaurant are slightly upset

[00:12:20] Francine: and sick.

They got sick. Like what in the world is the matter with people? So now while those people listening to this or like, okay, this is really sick, and why would somebody do that? Do you know When I was teaching? Back when I was teaching, and this was years ago, I can remember this individual, why somebody would tell me this during a class.

I have no idea. There's like 30, 35 people in this room. He worked for a pizza shop, and in front of all these people he's talking about urinating in the pizza sauce. [00:13:00]

[00:13:01] Matt: Wait, what? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on one second. Wait, wait. This is when you know you've worked in the industry for so long, so you and I have worked together and known each other for over a decade now.

I have not heard this story yet. I've heard a lot of your stories, which are crazy, but how has this been missed out all these years? So you are in a class and somebody like confesses that they urinate in the pizza sauce.

[00:13:30] Francine: Food safety class. I can visualize because I'm so very visual. I can visualize this room.

He was sitting like the, I don't know, the fourth table back on the left. And in my mind I could see that bucket of pizza sauce as he is telling this story. And we're in the segment where we're talking about the contamination of food and how food becomes contaminated. And he is very proud of the fact that if.

I'm [00:14:00] mad or upset about something, I'll just urinate in the pizza sauce. I'm like, wait a minute, and there's dead silence. What's she gonna do about this? It's like, is he just saying this or is he being serious? Or sometimes you have people that'll just randomly say crap just to get a reaction. And

[00:14:24] Matt: yeah, I've made a whole career on that.

[00:14:26] Francine: There being. Serious and people do random things and then sometimes random things happen that you don't think are real, but really are real. And that's a whole other story that you know, you've never heard. But he was serious. He was dead serious. And let's just say by the end of the day, I'm certain he did not have a job.

I hope so. I didn't stop the class right there and be like, hello.

[00:14:56] Matt: So when you were doing the class, was this a class [00:15:00] for that restaurant? So these are all the restaurant employees,

[00:15:03] Francine: or it was, no, there were a bunch of different entities in, in the room. A variety, but were some of his colleagues in that room?

A variety of C cities, local towns. And there were a bunch of, some of 'em were owners, some of 'em were employees. So it was a variety of. People in the room. There might have been a pizza shop, a burger shop, an ice cream shop. There were a variety of, so were there colleagues of this guy in the local, local health department?

No. He was the only one from the establishment.

[00:15:31] Matt: But I'm sure the owners all know each other. Right. So I'm sure this was this back when cell phones were wrecked.

[00:15:38] Francine: They may have been from a variety of different jurisdictions.

[00:15:43] Matt: So did you tell the owner like, Hey, this guy is peeing in the sauce, or, you know me?

What do you think? You 100% told the owner that this guy was peeing in your sauce. I mean,

[00:15:53] Francine: how, how

[00:15:54] Matt: long do you think it took that to happen? Okay, first off, I [00:16:00] am unfortunately not shocked this guy was peeing in the sauce. That does not shock me anymore, given our experience and. Food safety. I'm very few things shock me.

This guy rubbing stuff on his junk is crazy. But the fact that this guy was so brazen that he was like, yeah, when I get upset I just, I pee in the sauce. Um, the thing

[00:16:27] Francine: that people told me, I don't know if they don't realize that I have a list and I know first of all. I owned the company at that point that I owned Food Safety Training Solutions.

Most people didn't realize that I was a trainer that showed up and taught the class. At that point, my company hadn't grown, so I was a trainer that showed up and taught the class. They didn't know I owned the company, which is irrelevant. But I had a list of the business, the owner of the [00:17:00] business, and all the contact information.

So. I don't know. If they didn't know. I don't, yeah. Who knows what they're thinking. I don't know. I've never been one to walk into a room and say, Hey, my name's nc. I am the company that you, I'm just not that person. There was another time I was teaching a class, and it was about 45 minutes to an hour from where this individual worked.

This individual worked at one of my favorite restaurants. It was my favorite restaurant. I loved their crab. Imperial absolutely loved the crab imperial. And when we're talking about things that happen in restaurants or things that are, because yeah, I always tell stories and we're talking about things that go on, and he, again, I have a list of where these people are.

And he starts talking about when they take the plates [00:18:00] back to the kitchen, they'll pick the crab, the leftover crab off the plates. And that's what they use to make their cream of crab and their crab a grotten and the crab in pure. And I am trying very hard to have a discussion and. This can't be done and not react personally because that's what I eat.

[00:18:31] Matt: You just, you just found out that your favorite meal at your favorite restaurant is like being picked off of other people's plates and stuck on yours.

[00:18:39] Francine: Is he exaggerating? Am I eating somebody's leftover food?

[00:18:44] Matt: Wow. Really what's

[00:18:48] Francine: happening? And.

We're talking chilled plates, chilled forks. When you go to, it's not someplace that you eat all the [00:19:00] time, but it very high end restaurant. Very nice years later, I ended up doing health inspections of this facility. I assure you he was not flying.

[00:19:10] Matt: No. Wow. That is crazy. Okay, so as a, okay, I worked at a high-end restaurant through college.

It was. It was one of the coolest jobs. I stopped that job as a server, which was one of the easiest gigs I ever had. Easiest in terms of, it was hard with the four hours, five hours. I worked every night, but. One of the easiest cash jobs I ever had. I come home with like $250 in tips every night, cash. My mother-in-law was like, you guys gotta stop pulling cash out of this drawer.

People are gonna think you're drug dealers. It was amazing, and we were one of those places. It was right on the beach, Pismo Beach. At that time it was called Shore Cliff. Now it's called like Ventana Grill. It's an amazing restaurant. We still go eat there all the time. We did crazy stuff, but we never [00:20:00] did anything like that.

I mean, you have a bunch of. 20 year olds working at a restaurant. Like I wasn't really into drugs because I grew up in a drug house, so I knew what that stuff did. But a lot of the literally would go out and smoke a bowl and then come back and I, I was like, I don't know how you could do that. And m remember what everybody's order is.

You got to remember what the hoarder is all the time. And then I remember one guy, God, he was such a, he was such a great guy. He was one of my. Best friends at this restaurant, super, super gay guy, super emotional and things would just tick 'em off. Like what? People would do stuff, they would tick 'em off because when you're at a high end restaurant, there's a lot of entitled people at a high end restaurant, and so half of your job is just dealing with people's crap and being rude and that type of stuff.

This guy was super upset and he knew he wasn't gonna get tipped because these people were just super mean to him. This whole entire time complained about everything he did, and he was [00:21:00] a great server. And so he goes back and after he charges the card. He takes like in, in restaurants if, you know, there's so much hardware all over the place.

And there we have like these big, big magnets on this refrigerator and this huge cooler refrigerator door. And on that was like where we would, they would post like all the employee stuff and so's big circular magnets. And he grabs the magnet and he grabs the credit card and he demagnetizes the credit card.

After he charged it of course, and then goes and takes it back to them and yeah, it was, I, I was like, oh shit, I do not wanna piss this guy off. But yeah, it was crazy.

[00:21:46] Francine: After, as an inspector, I shut that restaurant down twice of salad reasons, like those chill force had place were being stored directly on frost.

In the [00:22:00] freezer that was like, it was gray because it was so dirty. They had a station. It was, yeah, like I said, it's like it was, some of the stores from that place were in my book. Like it's not named or anything, but

[00:22:17] Matt: yeah. Well this one is. Okay, so should we get back to Why Grind Where We Asked? We had a conversation about Grindr beforehand and learn some new stuff today, Hansen.

The kid that decided to put the food on his body, quote unquote,

[00:22:34] Francine: that group Hanson?

[00:22:36] Matt: Yes. Sorry. Jace Hanson went on apps such as Grindr, where he said men requested, he makes specific videos involving food. Henson then allegedly told investigators that he contaminated restaurant food more than 20 times in less than three weeks.

So he was there for three [00:23:00] weeks, four weeks? Yeah. March 26th through April 25th. He was there for one month at this high end restaurant and did so much damage.

[00:23:14] Francine: His actions caused that restaurant to close in August of 2024.

[00:23:19] Matt: Oh, did it close? I missed that part of it.

[00:23:21] Francine: It's at the end of the article.

[00:23:24] Matt: Yeah, citing financial problems.

The Lee for Hereford House location closed August 3rd, 2024. Wow. The Leewood police said that eventually, that they eventually received 380 tips about food contamination from diners who ate at the restaurant. 380 in one month, 380 people in a month. So if you guys are ever curious about hiring practices and how important that is, it's very important.[00:24:00]

It's very important. And I don't know, how does this guy, was this guy able to be alone in, and that's the other thing too, is working at restaurants, you are like never alone. Yeah, you are. Yes, you are. Yeah. I guess it depends on like for, for me, like I was never alone. Most

[00:24:20] Francine: restaurants do now is probably significantly different than it

[00:24:25] Matt: was.

Yeah. Than it was like 20 years ago. I hope so.

[00:24:27] Francine: They shouldn't be alone. But I mean, you go into the freezer by yourself, you might be prepping food in an area by yourself.

[00:24:40] Matt: Yeah. The restaurants I worked at though the kitchens were super small too. There were tons of seeds in a super small kitchen and. Yeah, like how I know everybody was smoking a bowl is because everybody knew what everybody was doing at the restaurant that I was at.

[00:24:55] Francine: I don't think he was doing this with 150 or 165 degrees steak. Let's [00:25:00] hope it's not,

[00:25:01] Matt: although, you know what that was, that would probably be something that someone would ask for on Grindr or any other social media app because the, I'm not pointing out just Grindr by the way. I'm just saying there are people that there that have certain kinks and I don't know, watching a guy stick a.

A lavy hot steak on the body might be one of those things. I don't know. But see that meat sizzle, boy, my God, a little shredded

[00:25:31] Francine: lettuce. It doesn't say if I don't know, this is what I wanna know, what kind of contamination were they finding in their food? That 300 people complain?

[00:25:41] Matt: Well, I think there's a difference between people getting sick and then people getting grossed out.

But 130 people reported becoming ill after eating at the restaurant, but there's no, there's

[00:25:54] Francine: between what they found in their food, the 300 people that found something in their food, and the 130 that got sick.

[00:25:59] Matt: [00:26:00] Yes,

[00:26:00] Francine: yes, I agree with that.

[00:26:02] Matt: But even the 130 people that reported becoming ill, I don't know if there's any concrete evidence that they did or they could have physically gotten ill when they found out what they ate.

[00:26:15] Francine: Did these people have a foodborne illness? Do we know, did they go to the hospital? I wonder the reporting in there that they reported getting ill. Is there any evidence that they got ill, such as did they go to the hospital or the doctor? Because I'd be curious to know what they had.

[00:26:30] Matt: Yes, I'm legitimate curious as well.

I'm sure. So is the audience here. So he entered a guilty plea of 33 felony charges, including criminal threat and child sexual exploitation. What a 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6. Human being, this guy is, it doesn't say so. Here's a quote by Hansen. He's a very proud man. When asked if he was aware of [00:27:00] any food contamination, Hansen stated, I'll be straight up.

Yeah, the affidavit said Hansen added that he's just been doing stupid expletive. Yeah, no kidding. He is a really good talker as well. There's another 32 lawsuits,

[00:27:22] Francine: maybe he's another one of those individuals that was just outside the back door.

[00:27:29] Matt: Well, since he was on Grindr, I think he was inside the back door, but I don't know.

We're gonna put like a not safe for work on this show, Fred. Oh my gosh. This is crazy. We talked about something like this, I think about a year ago. Remember that guy at the school that, uh, yes.

[00:27:48] Francine: The janitor? Yes. Your God?

[00:27:51] Matt: Yes. He's a custodian. Francine. It's a custodian.

[00:27:54] Francine: I'm sorry.

[00:27:55] Matt: And I say that 'cause my dad was a janitor.

That was his business. And he worked at schools [00:28:00] as well as a lot of other places. But he didn't call himself a consider. He didn't call himself a jander. Let's see. Leewood please said test results showed Hansen had no infectious diseases. That's good. Here's a good point to this story. No infectious diseases, red seed.

Yeah. I don't see anything else about like any evidence that people got sick, but I'm sure people did get sick. If I found out that this was happening, I could see my, a visceral reaction of illness just from, so I

[00:28:33] Francine: feel ill, and I didn't eat the food. So think about the poor owners of that restaurant. Their livelihood is destroyed.

I don't think you have lost of business insurance for something like that. Their livelihood was destroyed over him being an idiot.

[00:28:50] Matt: There's nothing that shows that there was any test results that showed back that people had got tested that were sick. [00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Francine: Well, we don't have time to dig through the health department reports if there's anything coming there.

[00:29:04] Matt: Yeah, but like that place employed, 50 to a hundred people and they're gone.

[00:29:11] Francine: Besides the things that we've talked about, which are disgusting, it impacted so much more than that. It impacted a nice place in the community for people to eat. It impacted people's jobs. It impacted these people's livelihood, made people sick,

[00:29:25] Matt: which we talked about.

So there you go, guys. Hiring practices are important. If someone looks like a creep and acts like a creep in the interview. Or maybe even in the training. 'cause most of these places are like, almost every state in the union is an at will state. So, and I, you could put in your employment contracts that you can let them go easily within 90 days if they don't work out.

This guy didn't last 90 days, he'd lasted 30. But I don't know if this guy was really weird. He was creeping people out. [00:30:00] I would've let him go like day two.

[00:30:03] Francine: So, so many people are afraid to terminate individuals and

[00:30:09] Matt: yeah, I'm not,

[00:30:12] Francine: nor am I.

[00:30:14] Matt: I'm not, no. And a lot of times when I hire people and, and I have to let 'em go, I let them know it's my fault not theirs.

It's, it obviously didn't work out. And I'm in charge of the hiring. I mean, I have a team that interviews. Most people and then I'm the final interview and then let them know, Hey listen, this is my fault, not yours. I hire people to be the right fit, both for the job and culturally for the organization. And you know, I didn't do, I didn't do a good job, I apologize, but you're not working out.

This is generally after a couple conversations and by then they, they know they're, a lot of times I try to help people find another job, but yeah. By the way, this is how much I don't know about Grindr. [00:31:00] When I spelled Grindr in in Google, I spelled it with ER instead of an R. Just R. So funny. Okay, guys, hiring is important.

One guy ruined a business in one month, and when I say a business like, no kidding, this restaurant, I had eaten there a couple times before and it was awesome. And I would've eaten back there again next Thanksgiving if it was there. 'cause I'm guessing they would've gotten a lot better at their hiring practices to make sure it's creeping like this doesn't get through.

But yeah, on that note, don't eat poop.

Do.