Walmart deli dumped its mac and cheese after inspectors found it sitting at 100°F

KISSIMMEE, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into the deli section of Walmart #2881 on a routine sanitation check and found two hot-hold foods that had dropped to a temperature that food safety rules treat as a danger zone: 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a full 35 degrees below the 135°F minimum required by Florida law.

The macaroni and cheese, a commercially processed product that had been reheated for hot holding, was probe-tested and came back at 100°F. The store voluntarily discarded it during the inspection. Gravy in the hot-hold case registered the same temperature. It was also thrown out on the spot.

Neither product was sold to customers that day. But both were sitting in a display case where shoppers could have selected them before the inspector arrived.

What Inspectors Found

The inspection, conducted March 31, 2026, turned up four violations total. Two were classified as priority violations, the most serious category under Florida's food safety framework. The other two came from the bakery area and involved a food employee wearing jewelry on the arms while handling food, and a separate employee working near exposed food without a beard restraint. Both were corrected while the inspector was on site.

The temperature violations were also resolved during the visit. But zero violations were formally marked as corrected on site in the inspection record, a detail that reflects how the state codes these disposals: the food was gone, not fixed.

What These Violations Mean

Hot-hold temperature violations are among the most direct food safety risks in a grocery deli setting. When cooked or reheated food drops below 135°F and sits in a display case, bacteria that were killed during cooking can begin to multiply again. The longer food holds at temperatures between 70°F and 125°F, the faster that growth accelerates.

At 100°F, macaroni and cheese and gravy are squarely inside that growth window. The inspection record does not say how long either product had been in the case at that temperature. That is the part the record cannot answer.

Florida requires that ready-to-eat foods reheated for hot holding reach at least 165°F before being placed in a hot-hold unit, and that the unit itself keep them at or above 135°F continuously. A reading of 100°F means something in that chain failed, whether the reheating step, the equipment, or both.

The bakery violations, while less severe, carry their own logic. Jewelry on arms and forearms creates surfaces that are difficult to sanitize and can shed debris into open food. Beard restraint requirements exist for the same reason hair nets do: loose material in food is a contamination vector, not just an aesthetic concern.

The Longer Record

The March inspection was the sixteenth on record at this Walmart location, and the first in that history to document priority-level violations. The eight prior inspections captured in state records, stretching back to June 2022, all came back with zero violations.

That streak included three inspections in a single month, March 2024, each returning clean. Two focused inspections in the fall of 2025 also found nothing to cite.

Sixteen inspections and 37 total violations on record means the violations are not evenly distributed across visits. The March 2026 inspection accounts for four of those 37, and it is the only visit in the available history to flag the deli's hot-hold equipment or food temperature practices.

The store has never been issued an emergency closure order. That is a meaningful distinction. A facility can accumulate priority violations without triggering a closure if the problems are corrected during the visit, which is what the record shows happened here.

The Unresolved Question

What the inspection record does not capture is how long the macaroni and cheese and the gravy had been sitting at 100°F before the inspector tested them. Hot-hold cases in grocery delis are typically stocked in the morning and monitored through the day. If equipment was malfunctioning, product placed in the case earlier that same day could have been at unsafe temperatures for hours before the inspection.

The store discarded both products. The inspection was closed with a finding that the location met sanitation requirements. Whether the hot-hold equipment was repaired or replaced after the visit is not reflected in the publicly available inspection record.

The next inspection at this location had not been posted in state records as of the time this article was written.