Dangerous ice?
Ice may appear the most benign of foods - yes, it is classed as food - but it gets more than its share of food-safety scare stories. The latest occurrence was the shock headline, "Poison on the rocks", in the Daily Mail last autumn.
The newspaper's investigation took 104 samples from 52 pubs and tested them in a laboratory. Forty-six of the 104 showed evidence of bacterial contamination. Thirty-four of the samples showed traces of coliforms, E coli or enterococci - three of the regular causes of food poisoning.
Additionally, a recent Which? study found 38% of ice cubes taken randomly from bars and caf‚s potentially harmful to customers - meaning they could cause sickness and diarrhoea if consumed. A further 28% of all samples taken were classed as dubious - they contained levels of bacterial contamination that indicated poor hygiene.
So why does ice appear so regularly in food-safety warning stories? What is wrong with ice-makers that they can't even take something as sterile as water, freeze it and hold it without creating a risk to public health?
According to those who make and sell them, there's absolutely nothing wrong with ice-makers. The problem lies almost always in the way the machine is looked after and the hygiene standards of those dispensing the ice.
Chris Davis, commercial director for Hubbard Ice Systems, speaks for all ice-machine manufacturers and distributors when he says he grows increasingly irritated at reading scare stories that warn of the health dangers of drinks with ice in bars and point a finger towards the ice machine. "I don't reject the findings of laboratories that have taken samples of ice served in drinks," he says, "though I wish they would accompany the announcement of a bacterial presence with its true health risk in terms of the tiny amounts found.
"What frustrates ice-machine manufacturers is the subtext that it is the machine that is at the root of the problem. It is not. Ice-makers are safe; the danger is from the water that is put in the machines, the cleaning routines - or lack of them - and handling procedures by staff.
One of the big causes of bacterial contamination of ice is from staff who do not thoroughly wash their hands - not just after using toilets, but as a matter of course during work as they handle dirty bottles or touch work surfaces. While it should be a disciplinary offence to pick ice with fingers, ice scoops, tongs and buckets need regular cleaning and sanitising.
Poor hygiene is not the only cause of contaminated ice. It can be the water supply, if a crack has occurred in the mains pipeline and soil bacteria are seeping in. The frustration here is that the most stringent of ice-handling and machine-cleaning routines will not prevent bacteria getting into ice cubes.
Yet the greatest risk comes before anyone touches the ice - it is from a poor cleaning and sanitisation routine for the machine itself. Kitchens and bars that are scrupulous in fridge hygiene may regard ice as so benign that the machine cleans itself with the melting water. It's common for city centre hotels to have an ice machine on one floor for guests to help themselves - but when is it cleaned? And who knows how many unwashed customer hands touch it in 24 hours?
