On Staph. Aureus....for overall food concern of our pie

Staphylococcus aureus
Source

Sores

boils

infected skin areas

nasal passages of man and animals

Symptoms

Vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, chills, and subnormal body temperature commonly occur 1-6 hours after consumption of the contaminated foods.

Fever is not present

Symptoms last about a day

Cause

Toxigenic strains produce a heat stable enterotoxin when they are allowed to grow in a food. Normally you would expect that there would need to be at least 1,000,000 organisms per gram in order to produce enough toxin to cause an outbreak.

Toxin is heat stable - organism is not.

In order to get "Staph" poisoning it is necessary for the food to have been contaminated (almost always from food handlers) and subjected to enough temperature abuse to permit the organisms to increase to 1,000,000 per gram and produce toxin.

This organism is the classic cause of many picnic outbreaks. Why?

Prevention:

Prevent contamination from food handlers.

This is best accomplished by requiring all food handlers to wear gloves and training them in proper handling techniques.

Avoid temperature abuse by maintaining the product below 40F or above 140F.

Cooking will not eliminate the hazard once the toxin has been formed.