A kebab shop on a suburban shopping strip prepares all its beef and chicken kebab logs, raw ingredients and hummus on an on-site designated preparation bench. The shop displays its raw vegetable ingredients on plastic leaves, which are stored beneath the ingredient preparation area.

The shop maintains a cleaning schedule, including wiping down tables with cool, damp cloths between customers and wiping down the benches with disposable wipes dampened with cool water at the end of each day. The plastic leaves are wiped down to remove left over vegetable slices and put back under the preparation bench overnight.

One week NSW Health receives five complaints of food poisoning from two separate groups after purchasing kebabs from the shop. An investigation is started and a total of 32 cases of food poisoning reported to hospitals are linked to food purchased from the shop.

NSW Food Authority investigators take swab samples from the customer tables, preparation bench, serving area, fridge handles and plastic leaves. They also observe the owner demonstrate his cleaning procedure and note raw meat juice is flicked on to the shelves below when the preparation bench is wiped down. The same cloth is used for all areas and then thrown out.

All the samples come back positive for the Salmonella strain found in the patients. The shop is fined and served a prohibition order and thorough cleaning takes place over a month to remove all traces of Salmonella. The shop is also listed on the NSW Name and Shame list for two years

1. What was the most likely source of Salmonella outbreak?

2. What is the most likely reason for the contamination?

3. What can the shop do to prevent similar outbreaks in the future?