Aramark addresses food problems at Kauffman Stadium

Officials with Aramark — which operates concessions at Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums and other sports venues across the country — were at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday to address food safety and quality concerns.

Their news conference included a tour of the main kitchen and a large concession stand. It highlighted several changes Aramark has made to avoid health code violations.

The event came on the heels of a Friday night $1 hot dog promotion that turned into a public relations nightmare.

Aramark, which operates 70 concession stands at the baseball stadium, got several additional food service permits to serve more than 63,000 hot dogs at Friday’s Buck Night. But it just couldn’t keep all those packaged hot dogs in proper condition, and some fans were soon posting photos of soggy buns and blackened dogs.

“Can you please do something about the food out there? I mean seriously,” one fan posted on Kauffman’s Facebook page.

Carl Mittleman, president of sports and entertainment at Aramark, responded to the complaints, saying the few subpar hot dogs served were a food quality issue, not a food safety issue.

“The food out here is safe. We are confident about that,” he said. “Fans have nothing to worry about. We take food safety extremely seriously.”

Aramark has been making changes at the stadiums since last fall, when an Aramark food safety manager took his concerns about food safety at the stadiums to the city and the media. The employee, Jon Costa, included photographs of problems that he said were not being addressed.

At the time, Kansas City Health Department officials said they were concerned about the conditions they found at Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, including food left in drawers at room temperature.

Costa said he had since been fired “for cause,” including violating the company’s media policy by taking his concerns public. His attorney has filed a retaliation complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigates such complaints against whistleblowers. His attorney couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.

Aramark said it has served more than 10 million fans at more than 700 games and events at Kauffman — including last season’s World Series — since it first began operating some concessions there in 2007.

On a typical Royals game day now, Aramark has nearly 700 employees on hand, serving 6,000 hot dogs, 2,000 pretzels, 500 pizzas, 450 plates of barbecue and 5,500 cups of soda. The sheer volume of food served and amount of consumers at so many venues on one night can be challenging, Aramark officials said.

But while they have had critical violations of the city health code, they said none of the concession sites have been temporarily closed because of violations. Most violations usually are corrected immediately.

Aramark has been beefing up training and even hired EcoSure, which provides comprehensive on-site evaluations and training to food service establishments.

The company also made several operational changes. Employee drinks on production counters were among the violations, so Aramark now has racks in the kitchens where employees can store their drinks. Totes and handbags were blocking the floor in front of hand sinks, another violation, so the company now provides storage totes away from the sinks and hooks where employees can store personal items.

Aramark also was cited for having cleaning bottles near food, so now they have hooks under the counters to hold the bottles.

Each stand has its own production facility, so each is considered an individual operation by Aramark and the city’s Health Department. The department said it inspected 20 stands on opening day, April 6, and 15 operations had a total of 28 critical violations. Most of the violations were corrected on site, including discarding hamburgers that had been held at improper temperatures. Six violations required a reinspection.

“That averages out to about 1.3 critical violations per stand,” which is comparable to other food establishments, said Jeff Hershberger, a spokesman for the department.

Aramark also was looking at having an Aramark representative available at guest services for any food complaints.

This story was originally published April 21, 2015 at 7:34 PM with the headline "Aramark addresses food problems at Kauffman Stadium."