BARTOW, FL. Back in May 2025, a state inspector walked into Granny Mac Beverage Company, a coffee and tea processor operating in Bartow, and found the person in charge unable to produce a single piece of documentation required under Florida food safety law.
No certified food protection manager certificate. No employee health policy. No written procedure for handling a vomit or diarrhea event on the premises.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conducted the inspection on May 21, 2025. The facility met sanitation inspection requirements overall, but inspectors cited three violations before leaving.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector noted that the person in charge "had some knowledge of employee health information, but did not have any employee health information available to help them answer questions about employee health as it relates to food borne illnesses and their symptoms, and reporting responsibilities, exclusions and restrictions of food employees." A guidance handout was given to the facility to help develop a policy.
The third violation was equally direct. According to the inspector's notes, "the food establishment does not have a written vomit or diarrhea event clean up procedure available." A guidance handout was also given to management to help write step-by-step cleanup procedures.
None of the three violations were corrected on site during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of a certified food protection manager is not a paperwork technicality. A certified manager is the person responsible for ensuring that everyone handling food in a facility understands the rules, from temperature control to hygiene. At a coffee and tea processor like Granny Mac, where products are prepared and packaged for consumers, the absence of a credentialed person in charge means there is no verified anchor for food safety decisions on any given day.
The employee health policy gap is more immediately consequential. Florida food safety law requires establishments to maintain written documentation of what sick employees must do, specifically when they are required to stay home, when they can return, and which illnesses trigger mandatory exclusions from food handling. Without that documentation on hand, a manager relying on memory alone may not catch a situation that puts customers at risk.
The missing vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedure addresses a specific and serious transmission route. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads rapidly through contaminated surfaces when cleanup is handled improperly. A written procedure ensures that any employee responding to such an event knows to use the right disinfectant concentration, contain the area, and dispose of contaminated materials safely. At a food processing facility, where surfaces and equipment come into direct contact with products, an uncontrolled cleanup can spread contamination far beyond the original incident.
The inspector gave Granny Mac guidance handouts for both the employee health policy and the cleanup procedure, but neither was resolved before the inspector left the building.
The Pattern
The May 2025 inspection was not the first time a state inspector has visited Granny Mac Beverage Company. The facility has 23 inspections on record and has accumulated 97 total violations across its history, a substantial figure for a single coffee and tea processor.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. But the volume of prior violations, spread across more than two dozen inspections, suggests a facility that has cycled through recurring documentation and compliance issues over time.
The two most recent prior inspections on record, both dated August 4, 2022, each turned up at least one violation. The May 2025 inspection flagged one violation as a repeat, meaning inspectors had documented the same problem at a prior visit and found it unresolved when they returned.
The Longer Record
Twenty-three inspections over the life of this facility is a long paper trail. Ninety-seven total violations across those inspections works out to more than four violations per inspection on average, a rate that suggests the facility has not consistently maintained compliance between visits.
The repeat violation logged in May 2025 is a specific data point worth noting. Repeat violations are coded separately in state records precisely because they indicate that an inspector flagged a problem, the facility was on notice, and the problem persisted into the next inspection cycle. At Granny Mac, that pattern held again this spring.
The facility's most recent prior inspections, in August 2022, both met inspection requirements despite their violations, as did the May 2025 inspection. Florida's "met requirements" designation means a facility cleared the threshold for continued operation, not that it was found to be fully compliant. Granny Mac cleared that bar in May 2025, but left three violations unresolved when the inspector walked out.
As of the May 21, 2025 inspection date, none of the three violations, including the missing employee health policy and the absent vomit cleanup procedure, had been corrected on site.
