TRENTON, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into a Trenton convenience store and found it could not produce a single probe thermometer for checking whether the perishable food it sold was being held at safe temperatures.
That finding was one of eleven violations documented at Jiffy Food Mart #1553 on Northwest 110th Street during a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspection on March 11, 2026. The store met sanitation inspection requirements overall, but the record shows a facility that was missing several basic food safety tools on the day inspectors arrived.
What Inspectors Found
Five of the eleven violations were classified at the priority foundation level, the tier reserved for procedural and equipment requirements that underpin safe food handling. The store could not produce a probe thermometer for taking cold and hot holding temperatures of perishable foods, and it could not provide sanitizer test strips during the inspection. Both items are required equipment, and both were simply absent.
At the ware washing area, inspectors found no soap and no means of drying hands at the hand wash station adjacent to the ware washing sink. That finding was discussed with the manager but was not corrected before inspectors left. A bucket of wiping cloth sanitizing solution in the retail area was not labeled, though an employee fixed that before the inspection wrapped up.
In the retail area, inspectors also found one tong utensil being used for two different pickled items, specifically pickled sausage and pickled eggs, displayed for customers to handle themselves. That was discussed with the manager and left unresolved.
The physical structure drew its own citations. The double front doors had a visible gap where the weather stripping had been torn and was missing, leaving an opening that inspectors noted as unprotected against the entry of insects and rodents. Inside the back room, there was no hand washing sign posted in the restroom, though the inspector provided signage and it was posted before the inspection ended.
Dust had accumulated on the ceiling and on condensing unit fans inside the walk-in cooler. Outside in a shed, boxes of single-use articles were stored directly on the floor rather than at least six inches above it. And employee food was found stored inside a one-door reach-in cooler alongside retail food items.
The store's 2026 annual food permit was not displayed when inspectors arrived. The manager contacted the corporate office during the inspection and received and posted the permit before inspectors left.
What These Violations Mean
The missing probe thermometer is the most consequential gap in the record. A convenience store that sells perishable items, including pickled products, deli items, and refrigerated goods, needs a calibrated thermometer to verify that cold foods are staying at or below 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Without one, there is no reliable way to know whether the food in the cooler is safe. A store that cannot produce a thermometer during an inspection has no documented basis for confirming food safety on any given day.
The absent sanitizer test strips matter for a related reason. Sanitizing solutions lose potency over time and with use. Test strips are how staff verify the solution is still concentrated enough to kill pathogens on food-contact surfaces. Without them, a bucket of sanitizer that has degraded to ineffective levels looks identical to one that works.
The unlabeled sanitizer bucket raises a separate concern. Cleaning chemicals stored in unmarked containers can be mistaken for food-safe solutions or, in a worst case, for beverages. The employee labeled it during the inspection, but it should not have been unlabeled to begin with.
The gap in the front door weather stripping is a structural issue that does not resolve itself. A torn seal on a frequently opened entry point is an ongoing invitation for insects and rodents, and it will remain so until the stripping is replaced.
The Longer Record
The March 2026 inspection was not the first time state inspectors had documented problems at this location. FDACS records show a prior inspection on January 24, 2024, which turned up nine violations, also without any repeat citations and also meeting inspection requirements overall.
That earlier inspection produced nine violations. This one produced eleven. Neither inspection resulted in a stop sale order or an emergency closure, and no violations from the 2024 visit were flagged as repeating in 2026. But the overall count climbed between the two visits, and several of the 2026 findings, particularly the missing equipment and structural gaps, are not the kind of issues that appear without warning.
The store has two inspections on record with FDACS at this location. Both passed. Both found double-digit violations.
None of the five priority foundation violations documented in March 2026, including the missing thermometer, the missing test strips, and the unsupplied handwashing station, were marked as corrected on site.