TAMPA, FL. Back in February 2026, inspectors from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services walked into a Tampa Walmart and found sliced deli meats sitting at 46 degrees Fahrenheit inside an open-air cooler, a temperature violation the store had already been cited for before.
The inspection at Walmart Market #5760, conducted February 23, 2026, turned up seven violations total, including two priority violations and one repeat. None were corrected on site before the inspector left, though some were addressed during the visit.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature problem was the most immediate concern. The inspector documented that deli meats "recently placed in corner of open air cooler" measured 46 degrees internally, five degrees above the maximum safe holding temperature. The out-of-temperature meat was relocated to a freezer to chill back down before being returned to refrigeration.
The second priority violation was in the same retail area. Packaged raw chicken, pork, and bacon were being held directly above cooked chicken in an open-air cooler. Packaged raw sausage was not separated from cooked sausage in the same case. The inspector noted that raw animal foods were relocated to proper storage during the visit.
The cooler itself was part of the problem. The inspector documented that the open-air deli meat cooler was "not maintaining all foods at 41 F or below," and noted that a technician arrived on site during the inspection and adjusted the unit.
Deeper in the store, the walk-in raw chicken cooler had standing water pooling on the floor beneath a leaking condenser unit. That condenser was also cited separately as a physical facilities violation for being in disrepair. In the deli warewashing area, the nozzle of the three-compartment sink was documented as soiled. And near the deli slicers, the inspector found damaged cement flooring with unsealed concrete exposed.
What These Violations Mean
Temperature control is the most consequential category of food safety violation in a retail grocery setting. When cold deli meats climb above 41 degrees Fahrenheit, bacteria including Listeria, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus can multiply at accelerated rates. Deli meats are a particularly high-risk category because they are ready-to-eat foods, meaning they go directly from the case to a customer's mouth with no cooking step to kill any pathogens that may have grown during the temperature lapse. The fact that this violation was marked repeat means inspectors had documented the same failure at this location before.
The raw-over-cooked storage violation is a direct cross-contamination risk. Packaged raw chicken, pork, and bacon held above cooked chicken means that any leakage or dripping from the raw packages could fall onto the cooked product below. Cooked chicken in a retail case is ready to eat. A shopper picking up that product has no way of knowing whether raw meat drippings reached it.
The leaking condenser unit in the walk-in raw chicken cooler raises a different set of concerns. Standing water in a cooler is a surface contamination risk and creates conditions that can support microbial growth on the floor and on any equipment or packaging that contacts it. A malfunctioning condenser also raises the question of whether that cooler, like the open-air case in the retail area, was maintaining adequate temperatures throughout.
The soiled sink nozzle in the deli warewashing area matters because equipment used to clean other equipment needs to be clean itself. A contaminated nozzle can reintroduce bacteria to surfaces that were just washed.
The Longer Record
The February 23 inspection was the most violation-heavy visit on record at this location by a significant margin. The prior six inspections on file, stretching back to February 2024, produced a combined total of one violation, a single citation from a focused inspection in February 2023.
Five of those six prior visits were focused inspections, a narrower review than the full sanitation inspection conducted in February 2026. That distinction matters when comparing totals. A focused inspection examines a specific subset of conditions, so a zero-violation result from a focused visit does not mean the entire facility was reviewed and found clean.
The repeat designation on the cold-holding violation does confirm that at least one of those prior visits flagged the same temperature problem. The store was cited for it before, and inspectors found it again on February 23.
The condenser leak in the walk-in raw chicken cooler, and the standing water it was producing, were not marked as corrected on site. As of the February 23 inspection, that unit was still leaking.