Jeffrey Nelken, food safety expert: This is part of your job description, keeping foods safe. Keeping hot food hot, keeping cold food cold, and keeping the place clean. It’s a very simple direction.

So how are the supermarkets doing?

We hired a survey company to choose a random but statistically significant sample of 100 stores from each of the top 10 grocery chains: 1,000 stores in all, spanning 27 states.

We then collected and examined routine health inspection reports for each and every one of those stores in the year 2004 —the most recent year in which all inspections were available. Then, we added up the number of critical violations health inspectors found.

We quickly discovered what a variety of inspection standards there are in this country. But every jurisdiction has the equivalent of a critical violation and if we weren’t sure what qualified, we called the local inspectors for help.

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We also found some health departments inspect stores more often than others. So to be consistent and fair, we calculated how many critical violations each chain had on average for the year.

The list
From the supermarket chain that kept things cleanest, to the one with the poorest performance in our survey, here’s Dateline’s "Supermarkets Sweep." This is a list where nobody wants to be number one. (From the fewest violations to the most):

10) Food Lion. The grocery chain that did best in our survey? Food Lion. For every 10 inspections, it averaged 8 critical violations: that’s less than one violation per inspection.

9) Wal-Mart and Save-a-Lot. Not far behind we had two chains tied for ninth place? Wal-Mart and Save-a-lot. Over 10 inspections both averaged 9 critical violations.

Save-a-Lot’s biggest problem, according to the inspection reports was selling food with expired labels or damaged packaging. While the chain did well in our survey, in one report from one Save-a-Lot in Eatonton, Georgia, a health inspector found 60 expired products for sale. Two months later, that number had doubled to 129.

As for the world’s largest retailer? Wal-Mart’s biggest problem in its grocery sections seemed to be keeping food at the right temperature. One of its stores had a real strange problem: birds, live ones. In Madison, Indiana, health inspectors told Wal-Mart it had to get rid of the birds flying around the store.

Dateline: What happens if they drop droppings on the food?
Employee: Well about everything in here is prepackaged, you pretty well clean it up — the only problem is where the deli has fresh food, they just have to throw it out.

Dateline didn’t see any the day we were there but an employee assured us,

Employee: There’s always some around somewhere.

7) Costco and Sam's Club. Tied for seventh place, Costco and Sam’s Club. Both averaged 12 critical violations — that means a little more than one violation for each inspection.

According to health reports, Sam’s Club didn’t provide adequate hand washing facilities for its employees. Some sinks were broken. Others had no soap.

As for Costco, one of its Brooklyn stores was cited in 2004 for a rodent problem. We visited the store three times in the past year and every time found mouse traps. But the most common violation, one out of every five found by health inspectors involved temperature. On 56 occasions, in many different stores an inspector found food on sale that was stored in what’s known as the danger zone.

Nelken: The danger zone is the range of temperature from 41 to 135. And once you get in the middle of that, that’s where bacteria rages and reproduce.

5) Winn-Dixie. Next, as we go from fewest violations to the most, at number five is Winn-Dixie. For every 10 inspections, the chain had 14 critical violations and the stores received most of their citations for storing toxic chemicals such as cleaning supplies near food.

4) Kroger. With even more problems, at number four, Kroger— they an average 17 critical violations.

When Dateline paid the chain a visit in Sugarland, Texas we found a number of expired products: cheese and milk. But the problem health inspectors noted most often at Kroger was one we couldn’t see. On 91 different occasions, inspectors cited Kroger stores for having improper food equipment, such as dirty meat slicers.

Nelken: Every time we slice the food we’re passing that bacteria on to that slice of cheese or meat.

The next three chains had more problems than the rest of the pack in 2004. In fact, for every 10 inspections, each of them averaged more than 20 critical violations, that’s an average of more than two critical violations for each and every inspectors visit.

3) Publix, on average, had 22 critical violations. Dateline visited two stores in Florida and found flies crawling over the fruits and vegetables. But according to inspectors, the most frequent problem for the chain was the way it stored toxic chemicals.

2) Albertsons. For every 10 inspections, 24 critical violations. And a lot were for improperly stored toxic chemicals.

1) Safeway. Finally, in the spot no store wants to be number one in Dateline’s “Supermarket Sweep?” Safeway.

For every 10 inspections, Safeway stores received 25 critical violations— on average, two and a half critical violations for each inspection.

The biggest problem, according to inspectors? Temperature violations. For instance, “Dateline” recently found this Safeway in D.C. selling fried chicken that wasn’t hot enough to keep bacteria from growing. And over two visits, “Dateline” also found dirty floors, broken packages of meat, and the store itself in a state of disrepair with wires hanging from the ceiling of the produce section.

We should mention that 25 percent of the stores in our survey had no critical violations at all in 2004.

Company responses
We asked every supermarket chain for a response to what we found. Jim Sinegal, the CEO of Costco, the store that came in at number seven, agreed to talk us on camera.

Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco: To the extent that we have those kind of violations? We’re disappointed. We’re disappointed in our managers and I put myself at the top of that list.

As to those rodent traps in that Brooklyn store?

Sinegal: There will be traps in there because we have to have traps. "We can’t talk 'em out," as one of our managers said. You have to go in and get them.

And the temperature problems?

Sinegal: We spend a lot of time on that and try to make sure that we’re correcting it. This is kinda of a wake up call for us and I think probably for everybody in our industry.

We did get written statements from the other chains and no matter where they ranked in our survey they all emphasize their commitment to providing safe food to their customers. They also say if they find violations, they move to correct them as quickly as possible.

Company responses

Krogers, which came in fourth in our survey and was cited for having dirty meat grinders, wrote that the chain has “Strict cleaning and sanitation policies for all food preparation equipment, including meat grinders.”

Publix, at number three, which had been cited for its storage of toxic chemicals, says it has strict standards to keep chemicals away from food and “any deviation from this practice would be against company policy.”

Albertsons, which came in second for overall problems said “even one critical health violation is too many.” It says it has “independent” audits of its stores and strict procedures and “any violation of company policy is unacceptable.”

Safeway, which averaged the most violations in our survey, noted that the reports we analyzed were from 2004 and since then Safeway has “continued to enhance and re-energize store adherence to our food safety and sanitation standards.”

Lea Thompson, Dateline correspondent: What should consumers do if they see what appears to be a serious problem in a grocery store?
Nelken: I think they should report it immediately to the manager of that particular store. Lacking any response from that manager, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to call the health department. I think it's the customers responsibility to vote with their feet. If they don’t like what they see, they should walk out.

Correction: In our story, we showed a health inspection report from a store in Eatonton, Georgia that had problems with expired labels. Save-A-Lot pointed out that the Georgia store -- Save-a-lot with a slightly different spelling -- is not affiliated with the national chain. Removing the store from the survey does not affect the rankings.

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