Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:00a.m.
Kim Schultz made the discovery whilst completing a project for the Otago Science Fair
By Dave Goosselink
A surprising number of Dunedin dairies are unwittingly offering an extra ingredient with their ice creams – E. Coli bacteria.
A 12-year-old student tested cone ice creams from city dairies, and found almost one third contained the unpleasant stomach bug.
What is worse – most of the stores have been hygiene-approved by the city council.
Kim Schultz made the discovery whilst completing a project for the Otago Science Fair.
She tested the food safety of scoop-served ice creams, buying a vanilla cone from 17 Dunedin dairies.
The results showed that five of the samples were contaminated with high levels of E.Coli bacteria, and one with staphylococcus.
“My friends and I, we’re all quite shocked, cause we’re quite fond of ice cream,” says Ms Schultz.
Three of the offending dairies held ‘A’ hygiene grades from the Dunedin City Council.
The Columba College student says the idea came from hearing about people who had gotten food poisoning after eating ice cream.
University microbiologist John Tagg, who is also one of the science fair judges, believes wet scoops could be the culprit.
“What we don’t want to happen is to use the ice cream scoop effectively as a pooper scooper,” he says.
Ice cream companies and the Food Safety Authority agree it is not an issue of product quality, but about good food handling practices, and clean scoops.
Chris Hein of the Food Safety Authority says ideal practice is “having them either clean and dry in a box, or under clean running water.”
“Not leaving them standing in some sort of bacterial soup made up of ice cream and warm water, then left for time so bugs can breed.”
Ms Shultz’s father Michael – a gastroenterologist – helped her test the samples, and is pleased his daughter shares his interest in science.
“Yeah it would be fun to see her coming along in my footsteps, but at the moment she wants to become a vet.”
Ms Shultz has passed her results on to the City Council, who say they are taking the matter seriously.
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