Maggots prompt call for prison kitchen inspections

LANSING — Michigan's prison food contractor, Aramark Correctional Services, is targeted in a bipartisan bill to require food safety inspections of prison kitchens, following the most recent incident involving maggots in or around food.

Reps. John Kivela, D-Marquette and Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, want Aramark to pick up the cost of the inspections by local health departments.

Currently, prison kitchens are exempt from the food safety inspections that restaurants receive because they are not considered "food establishments" under the Michigan Food Law. House Bills 4748 and 4749 would change that.

"Just in the past few weeks there was yet another allegation of maggots in food served by Aramark in one of our prisons, so clearly fining the company and the bad press they've received over previous incidents hasn't helped get them to run a good food service operation or clean kitchens," Kivela said in a news release.

McBroom said, "Our prisons should face the same scrutiny as our schools, universities and senior centers," and "it seems only reasonable that those kitchens face the same strict inspections as required by any kitchen serving the public."

Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler said "food safety is our highest priority and we welcome the public discussion regarding the appropriate roles and responsibilities in the MDOC (Michigan Department of Corrections) kitchen facilities as it relates to overall food safety."

MDOC spokesman Chris Gautz said the department has no position on the bill, but is open to discussing it. He said the kitchens are inspected more frequently now than when they were staffed by state workers, because state contract monitors do monthly inspections, a registered sanitarian does an unannounced annual inspection, and Aramark also employs a company that conducts inspections.

The Free Press reported June 2 that maggots were found that day in potatoes being prepared for serving at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility near Jackson. Gautz said though it was possible some contaminated food was served to prisoners before the meal was stopped, there were no such reports.

On June 11, after obtaining records under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, the Free Press reported that the prisoner who discovered the maggots said an Aramark supervisor told him to keep quiet about the incident.

Cutler said the prisoner's account is hearsay.

"We have passed our recent sanitation audits, while MDOC continues to work with its pest control provider to manage a persistent pest problem in the kitchen," she said.

Gautz said there have been "isolated incidents" of pests at Cotton, which the department has addressed, but "we don't have persistent pest problems at the Cotton facility." He agreed the department is responsible for pest control, while Aramark is responsible for kitchen sanitation.

The discovery of maggots was the latest in a series of incidents since Philadelphia-based Aramark replaced about 370 state workers and began a three-year, $145-million contract to serve meals to Michigan's 43,000 prisoners in December 2013.

The state fined Aramark $98,000 in March 2014 for food shortages, unauthorized menu substitutions and over-familiarity between kitchen workers and inmates and $200,000 in August 2014 after problems persisted. The state later confirmed it quietly waived the March fine soon after it was imposed, and Aramark never paid it.

There were earlier incidents of maggots found in or around food, though state officials later said the maggots couldn't be blamed on Aramark so much as issues with how food was stored.

There also have been incidents of Aramark employees arrested for trying to smuggle drugs into state prisons for inmates and several instances in which Aramark workers and inmates have been caught engaging in sex acts. Earlier this month, a former Aramark worker at Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula was arraigned on criminal charges of trying to hire an inmate to assault another inmate.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that Ohio renewed a contract with Aramark to feed that state's 50,000 prison inmates, despite similar early problems with that contract involving understaffing, running out of food and a few cases of maggots near food preparation areas.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.