LAKELAND, FL. Back in February 2026, a state inspector walked into Commerce Shell on V.W. Combee Road and found string cheese measuring 60 degrees Fahrenheit sitting in an open-air cooler, a food employee handling a cell phone and then reaching for hot food without washing hands, and hemp extract products on the shelf with no serving size or servings-per-container information anywhere on the label.
The February 6 inspection, conducted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, turned up 14 total violations, including three priority violations, two of which were repeats from a prior visit.
What Inspectors Found
The cold holding failure was the most direct food safety concern. String cheese in the top shelf of the open-air cooler registered 60 degrees; a cheese mix snack measured 50 degrees. Both products were voluntarily discarded. State stop sale orders were issued for the cold food failures.
The boiled peanuts on the customer self-service counter came in at 132 degrees, three degrees below the 135-degree minimum required for hot-held food. The inspector noted the peanuts had been out of temperature for less than two hours and ordered them reheated to 165 degrees.
The hand hygiene violation was documented in the food service area. The inspector noted that a food employee was handling a cell phone and did not wash hands before serving a customer food from the hot case. The employee was instructed to wash hands and change gloves, and did so before the inspection ended.
The hemp extract products drew two separate stop sale orders under the misbranding statute. The inspector noted the products were not labeled with serving size and servings per container, as required, and the products were voluntarily discarded.
The store was also operating without a valid 2026 food permit at the time of the visit.
The Repeat Violations
Two of the 14 violations were marked as repeats, meaning inspectors had flagged the same problems at this location before.
The hemp extract labeling failure was one of them. Selling hemp products intended for human consumption without required label information had been cited previously, and the products were again pulled from the shelf during the February inspection.
The second repeat was the absence of a probe thermometer in the food service area. A thermometer is the basic tool for catching temperature failures before they become stop sale events. Without one readily available, employees have no way to verify whether hot-held or cold-held food is within safe range. The inspector noted a probe thermometer was obtained before the end of the inspection.
Neither repeat violation had been corrected between the prior inspection and this one.
What These Violations Mean
Cold holding failures are among the most direct pathways to foodborne illness in a retail setting. String cheese sitting at 60 degrees, nearly 20 degrees above the 41-degree maximum, is in the temperature range where bacteria including Listeria and Staphylococcus aureus multiply rapidly. Customers buying packaged cheese from an open-air cooler have no way to know the unit is not holding temperature.
The hand hygiene violation at the hot case matters for the same reason. A cell phone is one of the most contaminated surfaces a person handles regularly. An employee who touches one and then handles food without washing hands is a direct transmission route for pathogens. The inspector caught it in real time and required correction on the spot.
The hemp extract labeling violation carries a different kind of risk. Products sold without serving size and servings-per-container information give consumers no way to know how much of an active ingredient they are taking in a single use. State law treats this as misbranding, and the products were pulled under Florida Statute 500.11. Two separate stop sale orders were issued on labeling grounds.
The missing probe thermometer ties all of this together. Temperature violations at this store, both hot and cold, were caught by the inspector. Without a working thermometer in the food service area, the store had no internal mechanism to catch those same failures on its own.
The Longer Record
Commerce Shell has four prior FDACS inspections on record going back to 2022. Three of those four visits resulted in zero violations.
The exception was a June 2022 inspection that found 12 violations and was also triggered by the store operating without a valid food permit. The February 2026 inspection was again triggered by the same permit issue, the store's second time flagged for operating without a valid food permit in four years.
A focused inspection conducted on January 6, 2026, just one month before the February visit, found zero violations. That inspection was narrower in scope than the February operating-without-a-permit inspection, which examined the full range of food safety conditions.
The two repeat violations in February, hemp extract labeling and no probe thermometer, were not flagged in the January focused visit. Both were unresolved when the February inspector arrived.
None of the 14 violations documented in February were corrected before the inspection ended, though several were addressed on site during the visit. The stop sale orders for cold food and misbranded hemp products remained in effect as of the inspection record.