Lettuce, Corn, Tomato and Metal Pins Please?

By: Mariam Mazhar
@MariamMazhar339

The Catering Co Kitchen’s salad bar was suspended on Sunday after a student found a metal pin in her salad.

“I heard a colleague found a worm in her salad last week and that was the first thing I told the cashier, but I was surprised when I found a metal pin instead,” history junior Fatma Sharawy told The Caravan.

Sharawy reported the incident to the manager, who reimbursed her for the sum of her salad, and transmitted the report to the University Food Services and Student Union via email.

“I felt as though the staff got very nervous as I reported the matter, since it was not the first time someone had complained about their salads,” she said.

Sharawy said that although it is understandable to see where worms could come from, she failed to find a reasonable answer as to why a metal pin was found in her food.

Student Union Political Representation Relations Director Ahmed Mansour told The Caravan, “there has been a series of deficiencies in The Catering’s salad and every time the defected items were missing so there was never enough proof. Regarding today’s incident, the student had the pin however”.

The Union asked the Food Committee to suspend the salad bar until they are confident with the quality control procedures in the food outlet.

“The Food Committee’s justification has always been very generic: ‘Catering Co provides almost 1000 meals per day and that is why there are always possible shortcomings,” said Mansour.

This is in spite of the fact that the increase in food prices has largely to do with certain quality control measures that food outlets now need to abide by.

The Catering Co Kitchen staff did not give any comments while the Food Services said, “it is premature to give confirmation [regarding] the initial clearance our food safety team concluded”.