Langham hotel pleads guilty to poisoning diners with salmonella in 2015

The Langham hotel was playing with a “ticking time bomb” when it served up a bout of food poisoning to almost 100 diners, a court has heard.

Langham Hotel, Southbank, has admitted to poisoning almost 100 diners with salmonella.

A leading Southbank hotel has pleaded guilty to poisoning ­almost 100 diners, who contracted salmonella from egg mayonnaise left in a dirty tub.

The Langham hotel admitted breaking the 1984 Food Act and failing to comply with the food standards code.

Melbourne Magistrates Court this week heard the hotel had served the contaminated raw-egg mayonnaise with several dishes in 2015.

Court documents show the egg mayonnaise was placed into a dirty 25-litre tub with crusted food left in it.

Department of Health and Human Services investigations found the mayonnaise became contaminated from the food remnants in the tub, which was old, cracked and chipped.

Inside the kitchen, investigators also found a dirty floor, a dirty fridge and other surfaces.

Elsewhere, handwashing facilities were unavailable to workers in the high tea area. In the buffet area, “potentially hazardous” food including milk, cheese, sliced delicatessen meats and scrambled eggs were not stored at the correct temperature.

The food poisoning hospitalised 16 people, including one pregnant woman whose baby was born five weeks premature.

Prosecution lawyer Sebastian Reid said the hotel’s food preparation was a “time bomb ready to go off at any stage”. “This was an unacceptable way of preparing and selling food,” he said.

Defence lawyer Daniel Gurvich said the hotel had taken steps since 2015 to ensure the outbreak would not happen again.

“It really is the rehabilitation and the extensive delay and the steps taken since that allow this company (The Langham Hotel) to avoid conviction on this occasion,” he said.

In 2015, the Herald Sun reported a 29-year-old mother became violently ill as a result of the incident, and almost lost her baby. The raw-egg mayonnaise was included in chicken sandwiches that were served at her baby shower.

The first complaint of sickness came from a party of 25 people who ate the high tea. The number quickly grew, prompting the DHHS to issue a food safety warning.

“I have been having recurrent bouts of salmonella and had to go back to hospital a couple of weeks after being discharged for more antibiotics and an IV drip,” the woman, who wasn’t named, said soon after the incident

“It feels like it is never-ending. I now have a six-week-old baby and a 16-month old child, and I have to be so careful that I don’t pass it on to them.”

Magistrate John Bentley proposed an aggregate fine of $60,000 with no conviction and ordered the parties to adjourn for six weeks and return with an agreed fine amount.