A 22-year-old worker's video of raw meat and other food stored outside next to a trash bin at a Golden Corral has gone viral, prompting a state investigation Monday and the restaurant owner to say the food was thrown away and never served to patrons.
The video was taken by Brandon Huber, an employee at the Golden Corral on Taylor Road in Port Orange, and shows him in his work uniform filming as he walks toward an enclosed area for garbage outside the eatery.
Huber points to trays of raw hamburger meat, bacon, babyback ribs and other food stacked in the June heat near a Dumpster. On the video, Huber says the restaurant was going to be inspected and his employer put the food outside.
Eric Holm, the franchisee who owns the Golden Corral as well as 27 others in the Orlando-Atlanta area, issued a short statement Monday that did not dispute the video. Holm said the manager was fired and the food was thrown away and not served to any patrons.
“None of these items were served to a single customer. All were destroyed within the hour at the direction of management. Brandon Huber, the employee who made the video, participated in the disposal of the food,” wrote Holm with Metro Corral Partners.
In the last line of the statement, Holm also wrote: “The manager involved in the improper storage was terminated for failing to follow approved food handling procedures.”
A woman who answered the telephone at Holm's office in Orlando on Monday said he would not be making any other statements on the issue.
The video has sparked an investigation by the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation's division of Hotels and Restaurants in Tallahassee, agency spokeswoman Tajiana Ancora-Brown said Monday.
Ancora-Brown said the agency learned of the video Monday morning via its Twitter account from an individual who provided a copy of the video and the name and address of the restaurant. The video was forwarded to the division of hotels and restaurants, which inspects restaurants, she said.
“They are looking into it. It (the investigation) is in progress,” she said.
Huber took the video on June 29.
Holm, the restaurant owner, called Port Orange police on July 1 and complained that someone had posted the video on eBay and was asking $5,000 for it, a police report shows. He told a detective he was concerned someone was trying to blackmail his business.
When Investigator Jeff Wenzel viewed the video with Holm, he told the restaurateur that no crime had occurred because there was no indication that anyone was trying to elicit anything from Golden Corral. Rather, the video was “posted to the public for whomever wished to have the information,” the report states.
At that, Holm asked if the investigator would contact the person who posted the video and ask that it be removed from eBay, the report shows. Holm told the investigator that if the video were removed from the popular marketplace website, he would be satisfied.
The investigator learned the video was placed on eBay by Huber's father, 46-year-old William Huber, the report states. The elder Huber told the investigator that his son works at the restaurant and was very concerned about the eatery's “mishandling of food prior to serving it to customers.” William Huber said he attempted to broach the issue with management at Golden Corral, but “they would not listen to him,” the report states.
The father said he wanted to make the public aware of the situation and he felt the only way to do that was to post the video on eBay. William Huber said he put a dollar amount on the video in order to garner attention from the public, according to the report. The father then removed the video from eBay, the report states.
The investigator told William Huber that posting it on eBay probably was not the best way to air his concerns about a possible mishandling of food at the restaurant. The investigator suggested William Huber call state officials who are responsible for inspecting restaurants, according to the report.
In addition, Port Orange Capt. David Meyer sent a copy of the police report to the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation's Division of Hotels and Restaurants. The agency's website shows the restaurant was last inspected Jan. 7 and passed the inspection.
William and Brandon Huber could not be reached on Monday.
By late Monday afternoon, Brandon Huber's video had attracted almost 400,000 views on YouTube, and the raw meat pictures had been posted on the Huffington Post and Time magazine's website.
“A video was recently posted showing an incident of improper food handling at our Port Orange, Florida location. None of these items were served to a single customer. All were destroyed within the hour at the direction of management. Brandon Huber, the employee who made the video, participated in the disposal of the food. The following day, the father of the employee, posted an offer to sell the video for $5,000, which was not accepted. The manager involved in the improper storage was terminated for failing to follow approved food handling procedures.” Eric Holm, Metro Corral Partners
