, FL. The person in charge at Root's Raw Juice Bar could not answer inspector questions about preventing foodborne illness, and management was unable to produce any proof that employees had been told they are required to report illnesses that can spread through food, according to state records from a September 9 inspection.
An inspector from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services visited the health food store and documented five violations. The inspector left behind a copy of Food Employee Reporting Agreement Form 1-B as guidance, a detail that signals the store had no existing documentation on file.
What Inspectors Found
The cross-contamination finding was straightforward and corrected on the spot. Inside the double-door refrigerator, cases of unwashed produce were sitting directly above washed, ready-to-eat produce. The inspector had the unwashed items relocated below the ready-to-eat product before leaving.
In the kitchen, an employee handling exposed food was not wearing a hat, hair covering, or net. That violation was not noted as corrected on site.
Scoops stored in several mix-in containers had their handles resting in the food product rather than extending upward and away from it. The inspector had the scoops repositioned with handles up before leaving.
Two of the five violations, both classified as priority foundation level, were not corrected during the inspection. Those were the illness-knowledge failures.
What These Violations Mean
The two priority foundation violations at Root's Raw Juice Bar are not paperwork problems. They point to a gap in how the store manages the most direct risk a food handler can pose: showing up sick.
When a person in charge cannot correctly answer questions about foodborne illness prevention, it means the store's front-line supervisor lacks the knowledge to recognize when a situation requires pulling an employee from food handling duties. That knowledge is the first line of defense between a sick worker and a customer's drink or salad.
The second violation compounds the first. If management has no documentation showing employees were ever told they must report illnesses transmissible through food, there is no mechanism to catch a problem before it reaches the product. A worker with norovirus, hepatitis A, or Salmonella who has never been told reporting is required has no reason to come forward.
The unwashed-produce-over-ready-to-eat-produce violation is a direct cross-contamination path. Soil, bacteria, and pesticide residue on unwashed items can drip or transfer onto produce that will go directly into a customer's juice or bowl without further washing. At a juice bar, where raw ingredients are the product, that pathway is especially short.
The Longer Record
State records do not include prior inspection counts for this facility in the data available for this report. Without a prior inspection history on file, it is not possible to determine whether these violations represent a first-time failure or a recurring pattern.
What the September 9 inspection does establish is that, on that date, the store's management structure had a documented gap at the priority foundation level. Neither of those two violations was resolved before the inspector left.
The inspection was classified as having met sanitation inspection requirements overall, which means the facility was not ordered closed and no stop sale orders were issued. None of the five violations were marked as repeats.
Corrected and Unresolved
Three of the five violations were corrected on site. The unwashed produce was relocated. The scoops were repositioned. Those fixes happened in the moment and were documented.
Two violations remained open when the inspector left. The person in charge still could not answer questions about foodborne illness prevention. Management still had no proof on file that employees know they must report transmissible illnesses. The inspector provided Form 1-B as a starting point.
A juice bar built around raw produce and fresh ingredients depends on the people handling that food knowing the rules that protect customers. On September 9, the records show the person in charge at Root's Raw Juice Bar did not.
