Salmonella scare: One year later

PROVIDENCE, RI (WPRI) - Since the salmonella outbreak at DeFusco's Bakery in March of 2011, four new health inspectors have been hired.

That now gives the Food Inspection Department a total of 11 to cover more than 2,000 food establishments.

DeFusco's Bakery closed for good after the DOH recalled all bakery goods at the Johnston bakery.

During the inspection in 2011, DeFusco's was cited for multiple food safety violations including storing ready to eat pastries in raw egg cartons.

When Eyewitness News requested to speak to the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health about changes they've made since that time, we we're denied an interview.

But we did some digging and found that in the past month there have been numerous inspections at bakeries statewide.

We discovered inside these inspection reports, violations, and a lot of them.

• "Pizza, calzones and pork pies stored at 65 degrees..."
• "Temperatures need to be 41 degrees"
• "Raw beef stored with deli meats"
• "Mouse droppings found"

All of the violations we saw were corrected on the spot.

Since the salmonella outbreak a year ago, there have been no other reported outbreaks linked to any bakery in the state.

A number of lawsuits have been filed against DeFusco's Bakery and some of those are still pending.

Others have been dropped due to the fact the bakery was not insured.