Filthy Australian Bakery Fined

A vermin-infested Australian bakery has been fined $60,000.

The Tuckerbag Bakery, in Marrickville, New South Wales, ignored a trading ban by health inspectors and plead guilty to 11 food law offences, including having filthy premises, vermin infestation and breaching a prohibition order.

A magistrate described the bakery as in a “filthy and unhygienic condition, infested with rats with large quantities of rat excrement visible…and the stench of rat urine obvious.”

NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said: “This is a serious case where a food outlet was in such a disgraceful condition that the Food Authority shut it down, but the owner flouted the order.”

In May, the Chief Industrial Magistrate imposed a $73,000 fine, but on appeal to the District Court the fine was reduced to $45,000 plus $15,000 costs against the defendant.

Minister Macdonald said acting on complaints from the public, Food Authority inspectors visited the wholesale bakery in July 2007 to find rodent infestation and faeces, filthy walls and equipment and food stored in unhygienic condition.