Episode 3 Food Fighters

We're a nation of food lovers, and today there's more choice than ever.

Whether you're eating in or taking away, there's always the chance that something can go wrong.

So it's a good job there's a whole army of people working hard

to keep us safe.

They're the food fighters.

Coming up today - get the party started,

but not your everyday inspection for this Food Fighter.

1,500 people here. If something goes wrong, it's a disaster.

Setting sail to protect this high-risk food.

You're looking at things like E coli, salmonella,

that could be in the water and get into the oysters,

and obviously you don't want to pass that on to the final consumers.

'And stringent safety checks before I'm even allowed inside this truly scrumptious factory.'

Put your hands out. In between your fingers,

in case you've been rifling through anything...

Who could resist a fish-and-chip supper?

Just the smell is enough to get your mouth watering.

But did you know that the industry has a very chequered past?

The fish used to be cooked in large, dirty cauldrons,

and in fact it was classed as an offensive trade.

Now, though, there's a team of environmental-health inspectors

roaming the land.

Well, we followed two modern-day inspections

to see if our chippys have cleaned up their act.

Bobbo's is a small chip shop in the village of Sileby, Leicestershire.

Last time the food fighters came knocking,

they gave this place a lowly one-star review,

mainly due to a lack of paperwork.

But owner Bob Singh has been determined to make poor scores a thing of the past.

I've been in the business 18 years, 18 hours a day,

so obviously it's like 36 years' work to me.

Running a chip shop is not easy. It's very hard work.

There's a lot of hours involved. It's a day- and night-time job.

But has this hard work paid off?

Laura Cowlishaw is here to find out.

Hello! I've come to do your revisit.

Wrongly kept fish is the stuff of nightmares for foodies like me.

-But this is better.

-The fish is all in the chiller.

-That's the lot for today now.

-Yeah, that's fine.

Bob stores his fresh fish at the bottom of the fridge -

essential to stop it leaking onto other food.

Just one recommendation here, Mr Singh.

Because this is quite near where you're walking in,

it's uncovered, so maybe cover it. Some cling film would be fine.

That's fine, yeah.

So that's the fish.

But what about its partner in frying?

Time to enter the chipping area.

This is our potato room, preparation room,

where we do the potatoes in the drum there.

They go into the rumbler, then from the rumbler

they go into this big drum here.

And then we clean the potatoes, clean the eyes,

and from there they go into that small drum

and they go into the chipper. It's all hard work.

It's all manual work.

This is really clean for a chipping area,

because potatoes, when you buy them, they're really dirty,

so it gets really dirty, doesn't it? It's a messy job.

It looks like Bob has good reason to be so chipper.

-What I do, I do my fresh vat in the morning.

-Yeah.

-Also I do a fresh vat for the evening.

-Right.

Okey-dokey.

Nothing is left hanging around too long here.

That's a recipe for safe food,

and marks a good start for this inspection.

50 miles away in Gainsborough, and another chip shop is falling under the gaze of the food fighters.

Like Bobbo's, Skippers failed to impress last time.

The chippy had messy storerooms that were being visited by a rat.

Now inspectors Jo and Richard are hoping to see

that Skippers has turned a corner.

Hi! Is it Mr Sandhu?

Hello. My name's Joanna Riddell.

I'm from Environmental Health at West Lindsey.

We're here to check up on some of the works we asked you to carry out,

as a sort of spot-check revisit.

Unfortunately their inspection is not off to a good start.

Part of what we said last time was that he had to keep his wash-hand basin clear.

Quite clearly it's not. Mr Hutchinson wrote to you

-about the wash-hand basin being, um, being obstructed.

-Yeah.

-Why is it still like that today?

-I just did it by mistake.

To make food safely, you need clean hands.

But here, their chips are getting in the way.

And over at the fridges, there are more problems.

-That's clean as well, I think.

-That's really dirty. Look.

Got a lot of, like, build-up of... um, you know, it's mould, almost.

You've got some mould growth in there.

-And again, it can contaminate the food.

-OK.

The fish is on the bottom there with no covers on it,

so it could actually contaminate the fish.

Uncovered fish is a problem here because there's dirt on the fridge,

and that dirt could harbour food nasties.

If circumstances dictated that some of that fell into the food

that wasn't really going to be cooked,

so there's a bit of organic matter in it. Some bacteria have grown.

Unfortunately some of those bacteria are nasty ones.

It falls in the food. Someone's going to get food poisoning.

It's not all bad news.

The fish is fresh and is kept at the right temperature.

But there are little quirks here that really raise the risk factor.

-What's happening here? Why is this...

-That's to stop the air, that hole.

Because he was feeling cold, Mr Sandhu blocked his extractor vent

with a piece of cardboard and a stick.

OK. When Mr Hutchinson came last time,

did he mention to you about that? Why is it still there?

I take it off some days, and before yesterday

I was not very feeling well, and feeling cold. I put it back.

But you need to get something outside, then, to stop that.

-I can do.

-OK. Can you remove that down for me, please?

You've got your cooking area here, but you don't have this shut

all the time. So you've got food there. It's really dirty,

so you can get things falling through.

Mr Sandhu is helpful and willing to take advice -

and that's just as well, because a crucial part of the inspection

is about to begin.

-Can you pull this out, please?

-Yeah. Pull it out.

In the past, a rat has been known to visit this chippy.

It's time for the food fighters to turn detective.

'Coming up - one of the best jobs I've ever had.'

Mmm!

-Good?

-Yeah. Very.

A growing number of people in Britain suffer from nut allergies,

so to cater for them, a range of nut-free products

have sprung upon the market. But it only takes a microscopic amount

to endanger somebody, so manufacturers must be vigilant.

Because if you do have an allergy,

things can quickly become a matter of life or death.

The Butt family from Bradford has always had to keep a close eye

on what seven-year-old Rehan eats.

He's allergic to dairy, eggs and nuts.

His mum, Razwana, is very careful,

but she can't watch her son every minute of the day.

One afternoon as she picked him up from school,

he suddenly spat something out onto his hand.

Razwana was about to get the fright of her life.

He goes, "I'm not feeling very well." He started being sick there

in the school, and I realised he had a sweet stuck to his hand.

I felt sick, really sick, and my mouth went big and I fell.

Rehan's arms and face began to swell.

The chocolate sweet had a nut centre,

and he was having a violent allergic reaction.

He was panicking.

He was saying, "I can't breathe. Give me my inhaler."

I gave him a good ten puffs of his inhaler.

Razwana also gave her son a shot of adrenaline from his EpiPen,

and he was rushed to casualty.

But things were about to get much worse.

As soon as we got in the hospital, he just fainted.

And then straight away they took him to resus,

and that's when he had his... He was finding it really hard to breathe,

and then he passed out, and that's when he had his first heart attack.

A single nut had left Rehan fighting for his life.

His specialist, Dr Eduardo Moya, rushed to the hospital to help.

We thought he was going to die.

'Mum was there.

'She kept saying, "He's dying, he's dying."'

I couldn't do anything. I was standing there helpless,

screaming. What else could I do? I tried to get him round. I didn't know what to do.

Soon after arriving, he stopped breathing,

and his heart rate slowed down dramatically.

MONITOR BEEPING ERRATICALLY

MONITOR FLATLINES

Rehan suffered two cardiac arrests.

Doctors fought to save his life -

and then, slowly and remarkably, he began to come round.

HE LAUGHS

Well, his recovery was amazing.

He started talking. He was hungry. His first words were, "I'm hungry."

Rehan has now been told what he went through that day.

They gave me oxygen,

and they gave me loads of stuff, but I don't remember.

'They pumped me twice.'

For the family, it's been a terrifying reminder

of just how deadly nuts can be.

That story really shows the dangers nut-allergy sufferers face.

So just what are companies doing to produce food

that's safe for boys like Rehan to eat? To find out,

we've been following the process from cocoa powder to chocolate reindeer.

At this truly scrumptious factory in Norfolk,

they turn liquid chocolate into a whole range of delicious goodies.

From our Easter eggs to advent calendars,

chocolate lollies to biscuits, millions of products fly off their conveyor belts every week.

What makes this place unusual is, they not only produce normal chocolate but also nut-free.

How do they manage both? It's time I spoke to a food fighter.

My name's Caroline Dennis, and it's my job to make sure

our chocolate is safe for our nut-allergy customers.

But how can she do that when they also make nutty chocolate here too?

This seems to be a bizarre time-bomb,

that you are manufacturing chocolate that doesn't cater for nut allergies

and chocolate that does on the same site. Surely that's a big risk.

It is a big risk to us, but we feel it's worth it

because we're giving products to consumers, children particularly,

who wouldn't normally be able to eat chocolate products.

So from a point of view of the chocolate,

I suppose that maybe is slightly more controllable.

You can control the supply sources. There's lots of things to do.

But even walking into the building as a human being,

I couldn't tell you whether I've been in contact with nuts

on my journey here today or not. So from that point of view,

how do you make sure that people or equipment coming in

-are safe to come into the factory?

-People are a great risk,

and we do a lot of work, including swabbing and testing people

to see whether or not they have got any presence of nut protein on them.

One of the things that is important,

if we bring new equipment into the factory,

we don't know where that's been. We don't know where your camera's been.

You could have been in a peanut factory.

So our normal way of operating would be to do some tests on that,

to see if there's any presence of nut protein.

Well, Heather's been swabbing our equipment.

What are we looking for? What happens with this process?

Basically it's the protein in nuts that cause allergic reactions,

and this test kit will identify any proteins that happen to be present

on your equipment, and tell us within five minutes

whether we've got any hazelnut, almond or peanut.

'And it's not just our kit that needs testing - but me too.'

Between your fingers, in case you've been rifling through anything.

'Heather uses a kit that can spot a nut within seconds.

'If three lines appear on this plastic test piece,

'then, we're not going in.'

As you can see, there are some lines developing on the test pieces.

There are two lines. That tells us that the test is negative.

-So the equipment is clear.

-We're clear to go in the factory.

We can film. That's good.

'So we're allowed in the factory, which is good news.

'And outside, a tanker full of liquid chocolate has just arrived.'

It's guaranteed nut-free,

but how can we be sure?

Well, for the answers, we need to head north.

Chester. This factory is where cocoa, milk and sugar

is turned into nut-free chocolate loveliness.

But just the slightest trace of nut, even in the atmosphere,

could contaminate it all.

So the safety checks here have to be stringent.

Every step, there are checks to keep the nuts

and any other unwelcome things out of the chocolate.

This will capture any metallic particles

or anything metallic that's come with the delivery.

These are heated vessels with stirrers in.

They'll keep the chocolate at 45 degrees

ready for dispatch to the customer.

And before it leaves, it goes under the microscope

to check for food-poisoning nasties

and, of course, those forbidden nuts.

These are the chocolate that's loaded into the tankers.

There's absolutely no growth on there whatsoever,

so because we're happy that they're negative,

I would go into the factory, release these raw materials for use,

because they're on hold until I have these results.

So they would then be allowed to be used in production.

Back at Kinnerton's, the liquid chocolate has just arrived,

and it's time to do another check.

Enter nut detector Heather.

Good, yes.

It looks a bit odd to me, but I'm told Heather's strong sense of smell

tells her if the tanker's been used to carry nutty chocolate.

But clearly she can't just rely on her nose,

so a sample is taken to be scrutinised in her lab.

The one key thing we must do before we offload the tanker

-is to test for nuts.

-Yes.

'And then it's time for what must surely be

'the finest job in the food business.

'When it comes to checking food, we should never underestimate the power of our taste buds.'

Tasting the chocolate is really important.

We test the sample against what we call a benchmark sample,

so a standard reference sample of that type of chocolate.

'Heather clearly loves her job, and why not,

'as she has to test two different samples?'

-I would like to taste. Can I taste?

-Of course you can taste, Simon.

We'd like you to taste the sample we've just taken

against the reference, and you can tell us

whether or not you think it's a match.

-Which one first?

-OK. If you taste... That one's our reference sample.

Mmm!

-Good?

-Yeah, very.

-Then if we give you today's sample...

-Thank you.

Mm, lovely!

-I'm happy with that. Are you happy with that, more importantly?

-Yes.

'At last, after dozens of choccy checkpoints,

'the tanker can finally be hooked up and pumped into the factory.'

And now the job of turning that liquid into lollies and reindeers can begin.

Having experienced the rigorous testing everything has to go through

to get onto the factory floor - raw materials, equipment, me -

it's time to meet the man behind this unique factory, Clive Beecham.

It's the fact that this factory makes nut-free and nut products

on the same site that makes it so special,

and how they do it is so simple.

-Clive, how are you?

-Hello. How are you, Simon?

It's not unusual to have nut-free manufacturers.

But I've never come across a plant that has both of them side by side.

And this is the dividing wall. This is basically...

This is nut-free side, and that's nut side,

and they work side by side. It must cause massive problems of logistics.

It does. In effect, we're running two factories on one site.

It's almost two management teams, it's two methods of distribution,

it's two bits of air conditioning, and it's a very difficult thing to do

because it's not just about what goes on inside this factory -

it's about our complete supply base

before it actually hits this factory as well.

The wall is quite magnificent, kind of like the Berlin Wall.

How did the idea come about?

Well, people are the biggest problem,

and the issue is to try and stop them from contaminating each other.

I worked on the simple premise that nobody can walk through a wall.

So if we put a wall inside our factory,

it would keep the products apart,

as opposed to trying to run one machine over there

which was nut-free, and another machine over there

which was nut-contaminated. Something inevitably would go wrong.

Clearly nut allergens are very, very serious.

It tends to affect children more than adults.

It's highly dangerous, and very small amounts can kill.

From a personal point of view, when a customer comes into the restaurant

and reveals they have a nut allergy,

it puts the fear into all of our chefs, all our front-of-house staff.

And yet you're existing commercially doing that on a massive scale.

We are. It's more difficult for you in a restaurant,

because you're changing your menus often.

The controls that you've got to put in inside such a small kitchen

would be immense, and it would restrict your offering hugely.

Our offering is restricted, there's no doubt about it.

But by and large, we are able to invest in certain pieces of machinery

which we dedicate towards nut-only manufacturing

and nut-free manufacturing, and we can just ensure that it works.

I can't believe what a thorough process this is,

with chocolate passing 11 separate tests

before becoming this rather cute reindeer.

But I think there's something missing here,

so time to put my chef's skills to use.

I've been swabbed, so I know that I'm safe to play...

..and touch all the choccy.

And then, the piece de resistance...

I know, I know. "Don't give up your day job."

Vital checks on this high-risk delicacy.

This is the crucial stage, really. This is it.

If it's not purified here, then...

trouble ensues.

I know in my restaurant and at home, you have to work hard

to keep your own kitchen free from germs.

So it must be a real challenge taking your cooking out on the road.

At big outdoor catering events, the dangers multiply,

and that's when the food fighters really earn their stripes.

Oxford University, often thought of as the pinnacle

of the British education system. But tonight,

it's time for the students to put their studies to one side.

That's because, for St Catherine's College,

tonight is party night.

It's their annual Valentine banquet.

1,500 people have come along to dance,

drink, chat and eat.

But there's a potential danger in their midst - food poisoning.

So, long before the champagne began to flow,

environmental-health officer Richard Kuziara was on the scene,

because a one-off event like this, with makeshift kitchens,

poses big risks.

There isn't normally food being served here.

'This is normally a piece of grass.'

So making sure they've actually got the right equipment

to cook the food and hold it at the right temperature.

Typically at these events, might not have hand-washing facilities,

so it's those kind of things we're looking for,

because obviously, 1,500 people here, if something goes wrong, it's a disaster.

The man whose head could be on the block

is caterer Steve Eccles.

Right. OK. OK.

We'd just go out of business overnight.

If we'd poisoned everyone at St Catherine's ball,

our business would be finished forever, so we've got to get it right.

This might be a high-class event,

but that doesn't mean it escapes the food fighters.

So, what's being served here? This is a chocolate fountain.

Looks innocent, but offers a dangerous temptation -

double dipping.

We'll have a selection of fruits along here.

People come in, they put it on a skewer,

on a plate, and they dip it in the fountain.

So the students themselves are going to do that?

We don't want them taking stuff into their mouth and then dipping again.

And that's what the staff will be policing?

Very strictly, and we've never had an occasion where that's happened.

Next stop for Richard, a taste of China.

We're doing sweet-and-sour chicken, sweet-and-sour vegetables,

and also one other - pork in oyster sauce.

Sounds delicious to me!

But Richard spots a potential danger.

-Is this being cooked up from raw?

-No. The chicken is a pre-cooked product.

So it's actually bought in pre-cooked, is it? OK.

Pre-cooked meat is the safest bet for outside caterers.

It's really hard to keep raw meat cool

when your kitchen is a tent.

However, there's one bit of meat that is being cooked from raw,

and there's lots of it.

-We've got three hog roasts to serve.

-Three?

They're cooking out the back at the moment.

They take about eight or nine hours to cook, so we should be ready for about 7:30.

The hog roast is a concern for Richard.

Pork can hide a nasty parasite called roundworm,

and a bacteria that causes gastroenteritis.

We're probing the shoulder here.

-Really we like that about 85, 90 degrees.

-OK.

If we get it on the shoulder, and check the rest for temperatures,

we'll record them all as normal.

It's vital this meat is properly cooked.

-Absolutely delicious.

-Wonderful.

-Some nice apple sauce in there, and a bit of crackling.

-Sounds good.

-I'm going to come back later.

-Yeah.

Full marks here so far,

and the chefs can prepare the banquet.

But it's not the last they've seen of Richard.

He'll be back at dusk.

Five hours later, and the ball is about to begin.

With that hog roast playing on his mind, Richard's back.

And he's going to take the pig's temperature.

It's good. Very good. We're going to check the core cooking temperature

to make sure it's above 75 degrees.

All pathogenic bacteria are destroyed above that temperature.

So, er, yeah. That's it.

The middle of this hog needs to be at 75 degrees C before it's served.

-OK.

-It's 69 at the moment.

69. OK.

-So another hour, and that'll be very good.

-Brilliant.

THEY CHATTER

It's seven o'clock, time to get the party started.

You wouldn't normally expect to see an environmental-health officer at an event like this,

but the risks are just the same as your regular cafes and takeaways.

What's happening here? Is this being cooked for the first time,

or is this the re-heat of... Yeah, OK.

At the chocolate fountain, there's not a double-dipper in sight.

So Richard heads for the stalls,

with a set of questions for the chefs and servers.

-This side will be the sweet-and-sour chicken.

-Right.

The vegetarian at the back, so there's no meat falling in it,

-and then the pork with the oyster sauce...

-Right.

..on the other side, and again working from the back,

-replenish, work from the front, replace.

-Fine.

Spot-checks are also needed to keep dodgy bacteria at bay.

So how are things looking at the burrito bar?

Right. Let's go for this.

So what we need here is above 63 degrees.

If the temperatures are wrong, it's a major problem.

You gain bacterial multiplication the nearer to body temperature,

so kind of around 37 degrees,

you're looking at bacteria doubling every ten to 20 minutes.

That said, this food probably isn't going to hang around very long.

Here it's been reheated from below eight degrees to 80 degrees.

The legal standard really we're looking for is 75,

so they're exceeding that anyway, and it's been hot-held properly. No problem.

I'd eat it every day of the week, and it tastes good.

As Richard flits from stall to stall,

everything appears to be safe and sound.

Great. Yeah, that's fine.

Good news for him and for the students.

-Food here was really nice.

-Sumptuous.

-Top class, top class.

THEY CHATTER

-SHE LAUGHS

-Really nice.

Richard leaves the students to party.

He's confident that if anyone's feeling sick in the morning,

it certainly won't be the food that's to blame.

The big freeze - or maybe not.

-So that could have been off from last night?

-Maybe last night.

Got things here that are absolutely, you know...thawed out.

Now, oysters are seen as a luxury, but they're also high risk.

The reasons are simple. They absorb bacteria and viruses

from the water around them. We also eat them raw,

so no cooking to kill off those nasties.

So let's take a look at what's being done to lower the risk.

This is Mersea Island, Essex,

home for centuries to a thriving oyster-picking industry.

Here the Colchester Fishery Company harvest oysters

and sell them on to some of the country's finest restaurants.

And today the food fighters have descended.

This is a two-pronged attack.

Environmental-health officer Tim Nice

will check how the oysters are stored and cleaned.

But first his colleague Kim Hardy heads out on the ocean wave.

Food fighters grade every oyster bed in the country from A to C,

depending on the level of pollution.

This estuary is currently a decent grade-B fishery,

but today could ruin all of that.

You're looking at things like E coli, salmonella,

that could be in the water and get into the oysters,

and obviously you don't want to pass that on to the final consumer.

The amount of E coli in the oysters determines the grade.

If Kim finds a lot, this fishery could lose its B grade,

and oyster fishing could even be banned.

We've just arrived at the sample point now. This one's called Aldboro Point.

So we'll now tie up the buoy and we'll get the bags in

that have got the oysters in, and we'll get the sample out of the bags.

We need 12 oysters to make up a representative sample

from this point.

Skipper Craig Morrison hauls the bags of oysters out of the estuary.

They were actually placed here by Kim a month ago.

Since then they've absorbed whatever E coli was in the water.

What's in the mud around them is what they will consume

and filter out the nutrients,

and unfortunately some of the bacteria as well.

And that's what their diet is.

Kim needs 12 oysters from four different points.

She also takes a sample of the water they've been living in.

And now the oysters in that sample pot can be whisked off to the lab.

Four more samples are taken, and the oysters are taken for testing.

Whilst they wait for the results, this will remain a grade-B fishery.

This means there could be some bacteria in the oysters picked.

By law, these bacteria must be removed.

Tim Nice's job is to see that the fishery

is removing those bacteria properly.

They do that with a process called depuration.

The idea of depuration is that the oysters are put in tanks

and water is cascaded over them.

Has to be for a minimum of 42 hours,

with the idea that they're feeding by filtering the water,

but there's no food in it, so in fact they're just washing

all the contaminants out of their gut.

In these trays are oysters worth thousands of pounds.

This is the crucial stage, really.

This is it.

If it's not purified here, then trouble ensues.

First on Tim's checklist is the seawater,

sterilised by exposing it to ultraviolet light.

Firstly we have to make sure that the water is clear.

We have to make sure that, within the trays,

firstly there aren't too many oysters,

because if they are that deep,

the ones at the bottom can't open and feed properly,

that they're all covered by water, because if there's any sticking out,

again they won't feed properly.

Everything is above board here.

Next on Tim's list, the packing room.

We're normally packing them 50 in a box.

The weight of them on top of each other will encourage them to stay closed.

And by law, when we buy oysters,

we must be able to tell where they've come from.

The batch number, which enables us to trace it prior to purification,

when and where it was harvested from.

It's got the packing date recorded on it.

-"Keep refrigerated and consume within five days."

-Good.

At the end of his visit, Tim is satisfied that this risky food

is being produced to high safety standards.

It's very good, actually. I haven't found any problems at all today.

And one week later, the lab results confirm

these oyster beds should remain graded B.

So it's business as usual for the fishery.

As for oyster-lovers, they can dine with peace of mind.

Excellent!

Every oyster they eat

has been through an incredible checking process.

Now, from oysters to a very different type of seafood,

the very British fish and chips. Whether you're fine-dining or fast-fooding,

the food inspectors are always out in force.

So let's go back to our tale of two chippys.

In Sileby, Leicestershire, inspector Laura has been impressed

by the fish-and-chips prep at Bobbo's.

But what about the other food here?

To keep dodgy bacteria at bay, hot food, including pies, gravy and peas

must be kept above 63 degrees.

Wow! I mean, it feels hot, doesn't it?

That's hot enough. That's 67 degrees.

At these temperatures, sauce can safely sit for days.

But it might not taste too nice, so Bob keeps his fresh.

You can see for yourself, the bags, it's all fresh.

-Yeah. That's good.

-The bags are all clean.

You can tell by the ends.

-They would feel crusted up, wouldn't it?

-Yeah.

Mushy peas?

Whilst hot sauces like gravy must be kept too hot

for bacteria to live, cold sauces like ketchup must be kept too cold.

That means storing them under eight degrees.

The sauces involved, we just keep them there down below now.

OK, that's good. One of the things you find in premises

is they'll have the mayonnaise sauces out on the side.

They're classed as high risk, so they need to be refrigerated.

They're all refrigerated out.

Everything here is in place for a risk-free fish-and-chip supper.

-Look how shiny the fryers are.

-I know.

-You can see straight...

And Bob is certainly passionate about what he offers up.

4.95.

The customers, when they come in here, feel warm, welcome.

-Yeah.

-And we look after them, and that's why...

If you come on the night-time, it's like a night club!

Thanks a lot, and keep the good work up.

Everything seems to be running fine, and she's happy. I'm happy,

and it makes everybody's job easier.

That was massively improved over last time. He's really pulled his socks up.

So, overall, well done!

But before telling Bob whether he's battered his low rating,

Laura needs to go away and crunch some numbers.

50 miles away in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,

another small-town chippy is receiving a visit.

Skipper's has had problems with a rat in the past,

and now food fighters Richard Hutchinson and Jo Riddell

are hunting for the unwelcome visitor.

When did you last pull it out, Jay?

Behind the freezer there's a suspicious black object,

and this gives Richard the chance to show off a more unusual side

to the food fighters' job.

If I cut that in half...

..that's quite crunchy, whereas rat droppings tend to be quite soft.

Rat droppings also aren't hollow,

so that's not a rat dropping.

This is actually just a bread seed, but the search isn't over.

This is where you're most likely to find it.

In the little tracks down here there may be mouse droppings,

and that's a good indication that there is a mouse problem.

In this instance, um...no problem whatsoever.

It's fine.

So it's a rodent-free zone behind the fridge.

Will the pests have penetrated the storeroom?

-This was the worst room possible.

-Right.

There was evidence of a rat up there.

Yeah. Right, OK.

Rat droppings were found underneath all these units.

Since then he's given it a really good clean out.

No evidence at all. No evidence.

Thankfully, unwelcome visitors have taken the hint and moved on.

But there's one last check.

Time to have a fish around the freezers,

home to burgers, buns and cheese slices.

Some of it feels quite soft. So obviously it's frozen products,

but some of it does actually feel quite soft.

So I'm going to check what temperature the freezer's working at.

Is this freezer on? It's operating at minus two.

It should be minus 18. It's quite soft, Richard,

some of this product.

Even below, look. That's gone.

The freezer has been inadvertently turned off.

So that could have been off from last night?

-Last night, yeah.

-That's really quite...

I can chuck them away now.

You've got things here that are absolutely...

you know, thawed out, which should be frozen.

So you're saying that you're going to...

Anything that's substantially defrosted, we're going to chuck away.

Mr Sandhu's offer to throw away all the defrosted food

is actually a really good sign.

It shows he takes food safety seriously,

and is willing to work with the food fighters.

This has been off for a while, really, I think.

And here, look, we've got a beefburger stuck right on the side.

But Jo and Richard want to be absolutely certain

this food isn't served up, so decide to smother it with bleach.

That means that food can't be used. It will stink of bleach now.

It's not a great end to the inspection,

but Jo and Richard are not downhearted.

The chippy has packed off those pests

and is trying hard, and that means a lot to our food fighters.

It's not the best but it's certainly not the worst we've seen.

It's sort of in the middle,

but because the business owner wants to work with us,

it is quite a good one, because you're 99 percent there.

And Jo and Richard will keep helping Skippers

to ensure it keeps heading in the right direction.

How about our other chippy, Bobbo's?

Bob was never happy with his low rating,

and has been frying very hard to improve.

Now Laura is back, and she has some good news.

I'm very pleased to say you've been given a five!

-Oh, thank you!

-So well done. Fantastic! Credit where it's due.

Very, very pleased. Thank you.

THEY LAUGH Can I put that...

Yeah, just where it can be seen. That's perfect.

-Thank you very much. Cheers.

-Thank you, Laura.

-See you.

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