The University of Canterbury Students' Association falsified temperature records for food prepared at a hall of residence, an investigation into a mass food poisoning outbreak has found.
A total of 164 students fell ill following a chicken souvlaki dinner at Uni Lodge Hall in November 2024, during examination season. UCSA has admitted responsibility and will face sentencing in December 2026.
Scale of the operation
The students' association provides meals for 500 residents across its halls of residence.
Food safety inspectors found UCSA failed to comply with its council-issued food control plan and did not record chicken temperatures during cooking. Handwritten logs had been completed retrospectively, rather than when the food was prepared.
Inspectors also found UCSA did not maintain correct hot holding and cooling procedures as required under the food plan.
The November outbreak
On 31 October 2024, kitchen staff batch-cooked around 50 kilograms of chicken. The chicken was divided, with half served in a stir fry that evening and the remainder blast-chilled and refrigerated.
Three days later, the refrigerated chicken was reheated in a rolling boil for 3.5 hours before being served as souvlaki.
That night, 164 students who had eaten at the hall became ill. Symptoms included diarrhoea, stomach pain, low-grade fever and vomiting. Laboratory samples from affected students tested positive for Clostridium perfringens bacteria, which typically follows consumption of food kept at unsafe temperatures for extended periods.
95% of those affected had consumed the chicken souvlaki. Investigators identified the 3 November meal as the source of the outbreak, with contamination occurring at some point between the initial cooking, blast cooling and reheating stages.
Investigation findings
Christchurch City Council issued UCSA a food control plan setting minimum safety requirements. The plan requires temperature recording when food is cooked and cooled for storage.
Investigators found staff did not maintain correct hot holding and cooling procedures, and staff training records were incomplete.
Temperature logs for the period when the chicken was prepared were missing or incomplete. After food safety inspectors visited, a staff member supplied handwritten records for 1 to 3 November, but these were found not to have been recorded over the weekend as claimed.
The investigation found no evidence of internal audits being conducted in the 12 months before the outbreak, as required by the food control plan.
What comes next
UCSA is scheduled for sentencing in December 2026.