By Kayla Perry, Editor in Chief
After a series of photos picturing what appears to be food contamination have surfaced on the popular Facebook page UMentioned Laurentian, an “investigation” is being launched into the food safety protocols of the Great Hall’s cafeteria, said Jean-Louis Guyot, Food Service Director of Aramark at Laurentian.
Currently, four photos have been published: the first showing what appears to be a bug in a salad, published by the page on Sept. 16. On Oct. 4, another photo surfaced, showing what appeared to be undercooked red meat found in a serving from the Fresh Food Company. Earlier last month two more photos surfaced on Nov. 16, one showing what appears to be plastic in the food, and another showing what appeared to be a substantial amount of hair in the food.
Guyot said that food services are currently strictly monitored, that all the staff members have completed health and safety training, and that the facility is inspected weekly.
“In regards to the photos we are doing a thorough investigation, all the way up the supply chain, to see where the foreign matter may have come from,” Guyot said.
Although there has been some mention on comments of the photos that the matter in the pictures may be fake or staged, Guyot said an investigation is launched regardless.
“We take this very seriously. Unfortunately when it’s anonymous there is no way for us to know whether it is authentic or not, but we can’t take the chance of saying ‘hey, it might be fake.’ We still have to conduct an investigation.”
The internal investigation will also look into which staff members were working on the days the photos were said to be taken, and Guyot said he will be speaking to the supervisors on duty at the time.
“The photos are not something that I like to see because obviously we take great pride (in the food),” said Ben Demianiuk, Director of Food and Housing Services at Laurentian. “Knowing, though, that we do serve about 1,000 meals a day, so about 60,000 since we opened, there’s bound to be a few issues here and there, not that I’m diminishing the seriousness of (the photos).”
Demianiuk encourages any students who may have an issue with food at the Great Hall or any other locations on campus to talk to either himself or Guyot, or send an email to the foodservices@ laurentian.ca email address.
At this time, Lambda has not been able to contact any of the original photographers of the photos.
