Farm Boy employees are speaking out after a failed health inspection temporarily shuttered the Midtown Toronto store this week.
The grocery store at Yonge Street and Soudan Avenue was closed Monday after failing a City of Toronto DineSafe Inspection.
According to the City’s website, the location at 2149 Yonge St. was shut down for four infractions during the inspection, including two critical and one significant.
The main issue had to do with rodents. Two employees who spoke with CityNews anonymously say the location is known internally as the “mouse store,” claiming this has been a problem for months.
“We have a specific kind of yam box that comes with a lot of husk in it, we had a family of mice living in them and as soon as we opened the box they jumped on us,” said one of the employees.
CityNews agreed to protect their identities as they say their jobs would be on the line for speaking out.
They claim part of their jobs has been to deal with hundreds of mice. “Here this is part of your routine, you’re gonna pick up mouse droppings, you are going to remove dead mice,” said the other employee.
The store was also closed for failing to protect food from contamination or adulteration, a critical infraction.
“[The mice] are on the floor as soon as they hear the commotion stop, there’s not many footsteps around, they’re out and about, they’re everywhere, they completely devour the grocery section throughout the night,” shared the employee.
They say thousands of dollars worth of contaminated food is thrown out each week, but, mistakes do happen. “There’s been many times where contaminated product has made its way to the sales floor.”
Prior to the shutdown, they say there were attempts to get rid of the mice, when a third party company would come in and conduct what the store employees called “blitzes,” where they would lay out monstrous amounts of traps every several weeks.
“It was scratching the surface, because I have seen with my own eyes, in refrigeration, in the coolers in the back, I’ve seen them frozen in time in fridges.”
According to the city’s website, this same Farm Boy location has had conditional passes with one or more infractions noted in February, April and May of this year: Each infraction noted a “failure to protect against the harbouring of pests.”
“It’s like it’s their store now, the mice are everywhere, you can’t step a foot without seeing droppings,” said one of the employees.
They want the pest problem solved for good before the store reopens. “There’s kids that come in, they pick up the food, and just start eating because they’re kids and they don’t know what they’re doing … so if their kid falls sick I don’t want that on my conscience.”
In response, Farm Boy tells CityNews that they recognize how “concerning this is” and are working around the clock to resolve this mater.
“The area in which this store is situated is challenging and we have coordinated our efforts with building management to address the issues on site,” read their statement. “We always take immediate action when issues arise. In this instance, we moved quickly to address the situation at the store with all hands on deck, and we continue to engage with third party experts to remedy this matter.”
The store added their store and food safety teams are reviewing and enhancing all procedures at this location and the store will remain closed until corrective measures are complete, inspections are passed and “we are confident our high standards are fully met.”
“We regret the inconvenience this causes our customers and appreciate their patience.”
