NAS Suspends a Restaurant in Modena Over Rodent Droppings in the Kitchen

Carabinieri from the Nucleo Antisofisticazioni e Sanità (NAS) carried out inspections in September 2026 at a restaurant and a wholesale supermarket in the province of Modena. At the restaurant, the inspection seized around 300 kilos of food — meat, pasta and semi-processed products, worth approximately 3,000 euros — some of which lacked traceability information or carried labels with expired preservation dates. Serious hygiene shortcomings were found, including widespread filth and rodent droppings on kitchen surfaces and in the food storeroom, along with structural problems such as cracks in walls, floors and ceilings, deteriorated kitchen equipment, and no screens on the windows. The restaurant's activity was suspended until the required hygiene-sanitary conditions were restored. At the wholesale supermarket inspected, NAS found irregularities in temperature self-control procedures and hygiene shortcomings in storage and sales facilities and equipment, including 4 kilos of squid stored at a temperature higher than specified on its technical sheet; the owner was fined 3,000 euros.

The presence of rodent droppings in an active kitchen is one of the most serious findings in a sanitary inspection, because rodents are proven vectors of Salmonella spp. and other enterobacteria through direct fecal contamination of food preparation and storage surfaces. That the irregularity coexisted with structural failures — cracks, absence of screens — confirms that the problem was not a one-off oversight but an infrastructure condition that sustainably facilitated pest entry and proliferation over time.

For TAAG, this type of finding is a reminder that no product microbiological monitoring program replaces pest control and the structural integrity of a plant or premises: an uncontrolled rodent entry point continuously contaminates any surface sampled afterward, which is why infrastructure inspection before microbiological sampling remains the first filter of any serious safety program.