KISSIMMEE, FL. Back in December 2025, a state inspector walked into Saira Enterprises Inc, a convenience store on the prepackaged food side of Kissimmee's retail landscape, and found the business open and selling food without a valid permit, raw bacon stored in direct contact with cheese and hot dogs, and no thermometer anywhere on the premises to measure food temperature.
The inspection, conducted December 30, 2025 by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, turned up five violations at the store. One was marked priority, one was marked priority foundation, and one was a repeat from a prior visit.
What Inspectors Found
The most urgent finding was in the retail area. The inspector noted that raw bacon was stored in direct contact with cheese and hot dogs. A manager was present and relocated the items during the inspection, which is the only violation among the five that was corrected on site.
The store had no probe stem thermometer. The inspector's notes state plainly: "The establishment was unable to provide a probe stem thermometer." Without one, there is no way to verify whether refrigerated food is being held at a safe temperature, and no way to catch a failing cooler before products become a hazard to customers.
The thermometer violation was a repeat. Inspectors had been to this location before and the store still had not obtained the basic equipment.
No Permit, No Manager, No Procedures
The establishment was open and conducting business on December 30 without a valid food permit. The inspector noted that a permit application had been submitted, but the store had not yet received authorization to operate. Running without a permit means the business had not cleared the state's baseline requirements for food safety compliance at that point in time.
The store also had no certified food protection manager, a person who has passed a recognized food safety exam and is responsible for ensuring employees follow proper handling procedures. The inspector provided industry guidance on both this issue and one other.
That third unresolved issue: no written procedures for handling vomit or diarrhea incidents. The inspector noted the establishment was unable to provide documentation of any cleanup protocol for those situations. No corrections were made on site for either the manager certification or the written procedures.
Of the five violations cited, only one was corrected before the inspector left.
What These Violations Mean
Raw bacon stored against cheese and hot dogs is not a presentation problem. Raw animal proteins carry bacteria including salmonella and E. coli. When raw meat sits in direct contact with ready-to-eat food like cheese or packaged hot dogs, those pathogens transfer. A customer who picks up that cheese and eats it without cooking it has no protection.
The missing thermometer compounds that risk. A convenience store selling prepackaged refrigerated items depends on cold temperatures to keep food safe. If a cooler malfunctions and drifts above 41 degrees, the store has no tool to catch it. The repeat nature of this violation means the store had already been told it needed one and still had not obtained it by the time inspectors returned in December.
Operating without a valid food permit removes a layer of accountability. Permit requirements exist so that the state has verified, at minimum, that a facility meets baseline conditions before it starts selling food to the public. A store selling food before that verification is complete has skipped that check entirely.
The absence of a certified food protection manager matters because that person is typically the one responsible for training employees and catching problems before an inspector arrives. Without one, day-to-day food safety decisions fall to whoever happens to be working.
The Longer Record
The inspection history at this location is short. State records show one prior FDACS inspection on file, a focused inspection conducted August 21, 2023, which turned up zero violations.
That single clean visit makes the December 2025 findings more notable, not less. A focused inspection in 2023 with no violations, followed by an operating-without-a-permit inspection nearly two and a half years later with five violations, including a repeat, suggests something changed in how the store was being managed or maintained.
The repeat thermometer violation is the clearest sign of a gap. A focused inspection in 2023 would not necessarily have caught every equipment deficiency, but the fact that the thermometer problem had been documented at some prior point and was still unresolved in December 2025 indicates the store had not followed through on that specific requirement.
None of the five violations cited in December were corrected on site, with the exception of the raw bacon storage. The missing thermometer, the absent food protection manager, the lack of written cleanup procedures, and the unresolved permit status were all still open at the conclusion of the inspection.