Thread: Wood serving platters - an expensive lesson

Very interesting read.
Very interesting that the restaurant chose to ignore the council recommendations.
Weather they agreed or not.
Why would you not just go along with them to keep you out of trouble.

Cheers Matt

I wouldn't consume food that was served to me on such manky looking bits of wood!
Only last year I was at a hotel on the northside of Brissy for lunch and my Burger and Chips was served up on a wooden platter
It however wasn't degraded with cracks or charcoal... and I didn't get sick either...MM

Reading between the lines I would say that the council has used the crappy serving boards as the reason for the fine due to lack of evidence of the food poisoning. 14 people got food poisoning, I'd bet my left one that it was the food and not the boards.

Typically, councils are parasites, justifying their existence.

The 'not washing hands' part might have something to do with the food poisoning Also with this incident, their serving platters looked pretty gross. I think they had bigger hygiene problems than just manky serving platters.

With regards to wood as a cultivator of bacteria - this may be an interesting read. The paper acknowledges the differing results from various studies in the eternal wood vs plastic vs metal debate.

I think there have been a lot of studies showing that wood has superior antibacterial properties. However, in saying that I had garlic bread served on a wooden platter only last night at my local tavern. The board had been well used and I would have liked to run it through a thicknesser to renew its surface. I also frequent and upmarket burger joint that serves a mean waygu beef and blue cheese burger. Again the serving plate is wood and needs a good plane to improve its surface. However, no food poisoning involved. I think if a restaurant has unhygienic practices you are bound to get sick.

Serves them right. (no pun intended). Even stupid understands GBP 50K.

mick

Originally Posted by cava

Typically, councils are parasites, justifying their existence.

I have heard a lot of negative descriptions of political entities. But never anything so concise with eloquent brevity that so perfectly describes the entity.

BRAVO !

I'm probably wrong, but Australia is one of the few countries in the world with three levels of government I think...

I some ways it kinda makes sense due to our geographics, but then the cost and and you say "justifying their existence" is often the case. They seem to be the chief drivers on the nanny state to me.

Pool regs coz "people", building regs coz "people" etc...

Food poisoning is NO joking matter...Councils have to take it seriously hence there are laws in place to protect the general public
The platters may have not caused food poisoning...perhaps it was caused by inappropriate handling of food by staff or something else
Fact is,the platters were in an unacceptable state to be serving food on...and they were placed on notice because of that
And they are relatively inexpensive items, so replacing them shouldn't have been an issue
They should have followed the 'rule of law' set by their local Council
No sympathy from me...MM

Originally Posted by david.elliott

I'm probably wrong, but Australia is one of the few countries in the world with three levels of government I think...

Pretty sure most countries would have Federal, State/Province/Region and Local/Shire/County levels at a minimum. America has 3, Canada has 4, India has 3, China has up to 6...

I think with the Australian situation the State levels are actually sovereign states and so there is a huge amount of useless duplication which could be just done once at a Federal level. So it's not just the number of levels it is the inefficient distribution of powers of these levels for a population which is less than the population of Shanghai.

For example, if we got rid of the States and territories in Australia, we would probably have Regional Boards or something to administer things slightly different for the needs of different parts of the country. E.g. Daylight savings etc. However these would be more administrative structures working within fine limits delegated from the Federal level. Rather than completely independent States.

I've been giving this some thought. My primary consideration is "continuity". If you point your clients to this article, plus the one on bacteria/wood/plastic/metal, then it gives you a reason to go back once a month to dress/fix/sand their platters.

Offer a service of restoration, oiling, etc and you might be able to sell a few new ones each visit

If they are worried about an authentic aging, flog them with a length of heavy chain!!

One last point, the council didn't have a problem with the fact they were wooden boards, but the fact they were rooted.

Originally Posted by david.elliott

I'm probably wrong, but Australia is one of the few countries in the world with three levels of government I think.....

Australia only has 2 levels of government, as per the constitution. The 3rd (is local government) is illegal.