Food inspectors: every other Czech ice cream cone sold fails to meet hygienic standards

Almost half of the ice cream cones and scoops inspected by the State Agricultural and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) this year fell short of hygienic standards, a spokesman for the state organ said on Thursday.

Pavel Kopřiva told a press conference in Brno that of the 97 samples taken from across the country thus far in 2020, “every second one” did not comply with CAIFA standards, in terms of the amount of bacteria, composition of the ice cream, or the production equipment.

Mr Kopřiva noted, however, that inspectors tend to collect samples at sites where they expect problems or which have been problematic in the past. In some cases, he said, vendors did not dispose of unsold ice cream at the end of the day, facilitating the transfer of bacteria from the machine to the ice cream and back.