With baseball season in full swing, fans visiting the concession stands at Alex Box Stadium can be assured that LSU Dining’s facilities have a clean bill of health after routine inspections by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. The PMAC, Tiger Stadium’s Stadium Club and LSU Dining’s mobile concessions trailer all yielded perfect scores in the annual report. These facilities operate on a one-year permit because they are used for events outside of the athletic season.
But the nearly 70 concession stands licensed on a seasonal basis – following the athletic schedule – did not produce the same results.
DHH spokeswoman Meghan Speakes said DHH inspects all facilities one to four times a year, depending on the license type. The manner in which the inspections are conducted, however, remains the same, she said.
Inspectors arrive unannounced and evaluate various aspects of the facilities based on a checklist of items, including the cleanliness of the area and the storage of food, Speakes said. Violations are documented in two categories, critical and non-critical. Critical refers to issues that could cause foodborne illness. 
While no issues were documented for the annually licensed joints, seasonal facilities – specifically the 50 individual stands in Tiger Stadium – had a mix of violations.
Tiger Concessions Director Larry Wallace said a crew of state inspectors visits nearly every home athletic event to monitor the seasonal stands’ operations. If a problem is noticed, the official attempts to correct it on the spot, Speakes said.
For the 2011 football season, for example, DHH attended five home games. At those games, department officials conducted 237 total inspections. Of these evaluations, inspectors documented 134 non-critical and 38 critical violations.
Though Speakes was unable to provide the reports that listed the reasons for the violations, she said “the sanitarians noted that the majority of the critical violations that were documented dealt with employee handling” such as hand washing, not using an ice scoop or not wearing a hair net. These violations were corrected, she added.
“Fans can know that the stadium food that is provided is clean, and the stands are licensed by the state,” Speakes said.
The process to prepare for these inspections begins long before the gates open for the first home game, Wallace said. In the offseason, the individual concession stands are stripped and thoroughly cleaned.
Once spotless, they receive a seasonal operations permit. The next step is educating the staff on what’s to come. All concessions personnel – three managers, 15 associates and a slew of volunteers – are trained on food safety by the DHH, according to Don Koshis, LSU Dining director of operations.
In addition to the DHH presentation, supervisors in charge of food production are required to be certified by food training company ServSafe. To attain certification, Wallace said employees must take an intense course and exam detailing food preparation, potential illness involved in the food industry and how to manage these problems.
Employees must score 90 percent or above on the exam to gain certification, Wallace said. ServSafe certification must be renewed every five years, but LSU Dining requires its management to retest every three years.
Wallace said the training is some of the best, which is one factor that contributes to the stands’ inspection results. “In eight years, I’ve served about 10 million fans,” he said. “There’s not been one sick person.”
He said he clocks about 78 hours a week working home games during football season. Among all the staff, he estimated there’s about 1,000 hours that go into each game, from moving food from stadium warehouses to the stands to getting the last volunteer to sign a health safety waiver.
By the time fans step into Tiger Stadium, Wallace and his task force have been working for hours. He said he arrives at the stadium around 7 a.m. on Saturday game days and doesn’t leave until Sunday around 3 a.m. 
About six hours before the gates open, the supervisors who oversee operations at the stadium’s 50 stands arrive to prepare. Hours later, their nearly 1,200 volunteers show up to what will be a fast-paced shift. But by the time they arrive, the stands have been cleaned and stocked with food for the event. Workers review health procedures and open for business about two hours before game time.
Food safety doesn’t stop when the action begins, Wallace said, noting actions like keeping time logs kept to track how long food has been stagnant and posting hot buttons safety reminders for volunteers.
Koshis noted that fans don’t attend the game to stand in the concessions line. LSU Dining must provide for the customer and get them back in the stands smiling and healthy.
“I take care of my fans one at a time,” Wallace added. “And it’s a bonus if someone says, ‘Damn, that was a good hot dog.'”
 
____ Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]