USC officials say they’ve revamped food-inspection protocols after students shared videos and images online of bugs and mold in on-campus dining hall meals over a span of three months.
From September through November, four students documented their run-ins with a live maggot, a stink bug, a worm-like creature and a fly crawling around on their plates from Everybody’s Kitchen and the USC Village dining halls, according to student news organization USC Annenberg Media, which first reported on the contamination Tuesday.
One of the videos also showed mold on slices of bread.
A majority of the meals shown in the images and videos included some type of produce, such as salad or broccoli.
In a statement to The Times, Dirk De Jong, assistant vice president of USC Hospitality, said the university has a “strong record of safely delivering 30-40,000 meals per day on our campuses” and consistently earns “A” grades from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, “which conducts regular, unannounced inspections.”
“For these reasons, we were greatly surprised to hear of these reports, which we are closely examining to verify and improve,” De Jong said.
Since the reported incidents, De Jong said campus dining facilities have begun instituting new inspection protocols — though he did not elaborate.
He did tell Annenberg Media, however, that USC has “a refined process now to ensure all produce is repeatedly washed and rinsed.”
The Times reached out to the USC Undergraduate Student Government for comment but did not immediately receive a response Thursday.
The L.A. County Public Health Department inspects eateries within the county, including the two on-campus dining establishments.
Online official routine inspection reports of the facilities date back to 2021. Both have consistently received “A” grades throughout their recorded inspections.
However, one inspection followed a complaint at the USC Village Dining Hall last April.
That complaint alleged that a dining hall worker wearing gloves used a broom and dustpan to sweep and then made scrambled eggs with the same gloves on, according to the report.
The case was closed without further action by public health inspectors after the on-site manager clarified that only janitorial staff handle brooms and mops, and chefs and cooks do not, according to the report.
The last recorded inspection for Everybody’s Kitchen was on Oct. 8 and resulted in an “A” grade. However, the facility was dinged for four violations: plumbing (fixtures, backflow device, drainage); food separated and protected; equipment utensils (installed, good repair and capacity); and floors, walls and ceilings properly built, maintained and clean. Each violation resulted in a one-point deduction out of 100.
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