Auburn Manor: Food Storage Failures Found in Kitchen - MN
It was April 27, just after 1 p.m., when state inspectors toured the kitchen at Auburn Manor, a nursing home on Oak Street in Chaska. Inside the cooler they found an opened box of chicken stock with no date on it, an opened box of turkey stock with no date, a metal dish of sliced carrots with no date, and a dish of pizza sauce with no date. The dietary director told inspectors he believed food was supposed to be labeled with both an opened-on date and a use-by date. He said he wasn't sure what the policy actually said.
The policy was unambiguous. A document titled Auburn Manor's Food-No Leftover Food Retention Policy stated that no leftover food was permitted to be saved, stored, cooked, or reused. Any food remaining after a meal service was to be discarded immediately.
The next afternoon, inspectors walked to the kitchenette near the north nursing station and opened the freezer. A loaf of multigrain bread sat inside, unsealed and undated, covered in thick white frost. Two gallon buckets of vanilla ice cream, each about a third full, were buried under layers of frost on both the inside and outside of the containers. One bucket had a jack-o-lantern pattern on the outside. Neither had an open date or a use-by date. The Director of Nursing, reviewing the items with inspectors, confirmed they lacked proper labeling and should have been thrown out.
A jack-o-lantern. In a freezer. In late April.
When inspectors spoke with the administrator on April 29, she said the leftover food policy applied to all dietary staff and that she had been unaware of any leftovers stored in the kitchen or anywhere else in the building. She explained that dietary staff used a practice called batch cooking, specifically to avoid producing excess food and eliminate the need to store anything afterward.
The batch cooking explanation and the frost-covered Halloween ice cream in the north station freezer do not resolve easily against each other.
The violations were cited at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and inspectors noted the findings had the potential to affect all residents who received meals from the kitchen. Auburn Manor did not receive an immediate jeopardy citation. The inspection was completed April 30.
What the report captures, underneath the regulatory language, is a kitchen operating outside its own written rules while management believed those rules were being followed. The dietary director didn't know what the policy said. The administrator didn't know food was being stored. The Director of Nursing looked at frost-covered, undated ice cream and confirmed it should have been discarded, which means it hadn't been.
Unlabeled food is not a paperwork problem. When staff cannot determine how long something has been open or whether it is safe to serve, the risk of foodborne illness rises, and in a population of elderly residents, many of whom have compromised immune systems, the consequences of a foodborne illness can be serious. The facility's own policy existed precisely to prevent that risk. The policy required immediate disposal. The jack-o-lantern ice cream had been in that freezer since at least Halloween.
Nobody had thrown it out.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Auburn Manor from 2026-04-30 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 6, 2026 · Our methodology
AUBURN MANOR in CHASKA, MN was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 30, 2026.
It was April 27, just after 1 p.m., when state inspectors toured the kitchen at Auburn Manor, a nursing home on Oak Street in Chaska.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.