broken glass in instant coffee, plastic in puffed rice and champagne poisoned with ecstasy;

sometimes also a "salmonella" spread or listeria in farmer's hand cheese: A visit to the website maintained by the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety is not for the faint-hearted.

Over-anxious and hypochondriacs should therefore better avoid the portal of the federal states.

Because hazard warnings, product warnings and recall campaigns by companies are published there regularly and almost incessantly.

All of this makes it clear that the layman is wrong if he thinks he can correctly assess the dangers emanating from individual foods.

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

  • Follow I follow

With sushi, for example, there is a much higher risk than with baked fish.

Raw milk products, salads, cucumbers and sprouts should also always be consumed with due caution.

And when in doubt, the baked meatball should be less dangerous than the pepper biter.

The rule of thumb "Cooked is always better than raw" and the tip to rely "on your own senses" - i.e. on seeing, tasting and smelling - comes from someone who should know.

Because department head Florian Becker is responsible for food controls in the southern Hessian district of Groß-Gerau with four other colleagues.

And they were all under a lot of pressure in mid-April, like the entire department that was still part of the veterinary office at the time.

Ironically, on the Easter holidays, it became public knowledge that

that a fruit and vegetable company based in Gernsheim is said to have delivered cucumbers contaminated with Listeria.

The bacteria are considered ubiquitous, i.e. omnipresent in nature.

If food is not produced properly, meat, fish and dairy products in particular can be affected;

however, as evident in the specific case, also pre-packaged salads.

controls have not always been possible

The raw food mixture contaminated with germs had found its way into hospital kitchens, among other things, so that four patients in Frankfurt and Offenbach fell ill between October 2021 and January 2022;

in part, however, probably only after a longer period of time.

In at least one case, at least according to the allegation against the operator of the farm, the listeriosis infection could have led to the death of the person concerned.

Which is why the public prosecutor's office in Darmstadt is investigating.

The district and above all District Administrator Thomas Will (SPD) immediately admitted to errors after the allegations became known.

As a result of the corona pandemic and the associated personnel-intensive additional burdens, the controls that were actually required and obviously also necessary in 2020 and 2021 were not always possible to the usual extent.

But improvement is in sight.

A new colleague is expected on July 1st.

Another position is now to be advertised.

According to the administration, there are almost 2,600 companies subject to inspections in the 14 municipalities of the district, in which more than 275,000 people live: from the bakery on the corner to petrol stations and kiosks as well as snack bars and restaurants to slaughterhouses, food wholesalers and last but not least the catering companies at the airport.

They all have to be visited regularly by the inspectors: at intervals of between monthly and up to three years, depending on how and what they produce or sell.

Such a check can sometimes only take an hour, sometimes two days, explains Becker: "And then maybe with three or four employees".

In the statistics, for example, the control of umpteen sales stands at a folk festival or a trade show is considered to be only “one operation”.