Food poisoning claims against Walsall firms top 1,300
More than 1,300 claims of food poisoning have been made against Walsall businesses in the last five years, new figures show.
Last year 12 outlets were prosecuted for having unhygienic premises, with 11 fined more than £19,000 combined. One received a warning.
Latest council figures show that one in 10 food outlets in the town require 'major improvement' to hygiene standards as they are 'putting the public's health at risk'.
A total of 1,361 food poisoning cases in the borough have been reported and investigated by environmental health staff since 2011.
Walsall borough businesses taken to court include Cantonese takeaway Po Wing on Harden Road. Its owner was fined £2,000 after inspectors found mouse droppings throughout the premises – including on its kitchen and customer counter.
It is not known where the food poisoning reports relate to, but Councillor Ian Robertson, Walsall Council portfolio holder for health, said it was important that the public checked hygiene ratings of all outlets.
He said: "Some excellent work has been done over the last year in identifying problems with certain food outlets and even taking the step of closing down some sites that were a risk to the public.
"Hygiene at takeaways is an increasingly important issue as more and more pop up across the borough.
"To identify these risks and establish what has to be done is a crucial job and I think we are tackling the problem well.
"There are a lot of places that are on the cusp of being adequate and inadequate, which is why it is important people check the hygiene ratings advertised in takeaways before they buy their food."
The figures will be discussed at a full council meeting next week as the authority signs up to the Environmental Health and Trading Standards' Food & Feed Law Enforcement Service Plan again this year.
The plan 'aims to ensure that food and drink produced, prepared or sold in the borough is safe and without risk to health, is correctly labelled and meets appropriate compositional and microbiological standards'.
It is estimated that the council will make 1386 visits to food outlets this year to check how well they are meeting standards.
