ORLANDO, FL. Back in March 2026, a state inspector walking through the meat room at Presidente Supermarket No. 50 Inc. on the last day of the month found raw pork and chicken sitting in a walk-in cooler at 45 degrees Fahrenheit, four degrees above the maximum safe threshold for raw meat.
That finding was not the first time inspectors had flagged a cold-holding failure at this location. It was a repeat violation.
What Inspectors Found
The inspection on March 31, 2026, turned up three violations total, two of them classified as priority violations. The inspector documented the cold storage problem this way: "Meat Room: Raw Pork and Chicken observed in walk-in cooler at an internal temperature of 45 degrees F."
The cooler itself was the root problem. Inspectors noted the walk-in unit was "not able to maintain time/temperature control foods at 41 degrees or below." A service technician was on site during the inspection, adjusted the controls, and the unit was corrected before inspectors left.
The second priority violation was on the hot side of the operation, and it involved multiple items in two separate areas. In the kitchen, yuca and baked chicken had been placed on the hot bar at 8 a.m. and were measured at between 120 and 128 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:50 a.m., nearly two hours later. In the retail section, BBQ ribs placed in a hot case at 7:30 a.m. were recorded at 125 degrees Fahrenheit at 10:15 a.m.
The safe minimum for hot-held food is 135 degrees Fahrenheit. Every item measured that morning fell short of it.
Both the kitchen items and the ribs were reheated to 165 degrees Fahrenheit before the inspector left. No stop sale orders were issued.
Why the Repeat Tag Matters
The cold-holding violation carried a repeat designation, meaning inspectors had cited the same category of failure at this location in a prior inspection. That distinction is significant: it tells the record that a problem was identified, presumably corrected, and then surfaced again.
The repeat tag does not specify how long the walk-in cooler had been struggling before the March visit, or whether the temperature drift was gradual. What the record shows is that raw meat, including chicken, was measurably out of safe range when inspectors arrived.
What These Violations Mean
Cold-holding failures involving raw poultry and raw pork are among the more serious routine violations a grocery meat department can receive. Both products are associated with pathogens, including salmonella in chicken and yersinia in pork, that multiply in the temperature range between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. A cooler holding meat at 45 degrees rather than 41 degrees may not look different to a shopper, but the four-degree gap accelerates bacterial growth in ways that compound over time.
The equipment violation here is what makes the cold-holding finding more than a one-time lapse. The walk-in cooler was not malfunctioning in a sudden or dramatic way. It was simply unable to maintain the temperature it is required to maintain. That means every product stored in the meat room was relying on a unit that had already demonstrated it could not do its job.
The hot-holding violations carry a different but equally direct risk. Food held below 135 degrees Fahrenheit enters what food safety guidelines describe as the danger zone, where bacteria that survived cooking can begin to multiply again. Yuca, baked chicken, and BBQ ribs all measured between 120 and 128 degrees that morning. Customers purchasing those items off the hot bar or retail case during that window would have been buying food that had spent time in that range.
None of the three violations were corrected before the inspector arrived in the sense that the store had resolved them independently. All corrections happened during the inspection itself, with a service technician adjusting the cooler and staff reheating the hot-held items on site.
The Longer Record
The inspection history for this location is short. State records show one prior Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspection on file, conducted on April 21, 2023, nearly three years before the March 2026 visit. That inspection also resulted in two violations, and the facility met inspection requirements at that time as well.
The 2023 record does not detail what those two violations covered, but the presence of a repeat designation on the cold-holding violation in 2026 indicates at least one category of problem carried over across that three-year gap.
Two inspections over three years is a limited dataset. What the record does establish is that both visits found violations, and that the most recent visit found a problem the store had been cited for before.
The March 31 inspection closed with a finding of "Met Sanitation Inspection Requirements," meaning the facility was not ordered closed and was permitted to continue operating. The cooler was functioning again by the time inspectors left. The hot-held items had been reheated.
What the record does not show is how long the walk-in cooler had been running above 41 degrees before the inspector walked into the meat room that morning.