Roberts Health Centre: Food Safety Violations - RI
Two packages of Hormel Natural Choice roast beef, use-or-freeze-by date of April 14, 2026, were still on the shelf at Roberts Health Centre on May 18. The cook on duty, identified in the inspection report as Staff C, looked at them and told the inspector they were expired and should have been thrown out. Nobody disputed what the inspector found. Nobody had thrown them out either.
The meat was one of two food safety violations documented during the May inspection of the 25 Roberts Way facility. The other was on the second floor.
At approximately 9:15 that same morning, the inspector walked into the second-floor kitchenette and looked inside the ice machine. On the white shield inside the machine, the surface where ice is dispensed to residents, there was a pink substance. Pink residue on ice machine components is a recognized sign of bacterial or microbial contamination. This was the machine residents and staff used to get ice.
The Food Service Director was interviewed twice about it, once at 9:21 AM on May 18 and again on May 21 at 8:30 AM. Both times, he acknowledged the pink substance was there and that the machine needed to be cleaned. He also acknowledged, during those same conversations, that the roast beef had been past its expiration date and should have been discarded.
That is the complete record of accountability documented in the inspection report: two acknowledgments, spread across two conversations, three days apart.
The inspection cited the Rhode Island Food Code, 2022 Edition, which requires that ready-to-eat food held under refrigeration be clearly dated and consumed or discarded within seven days of preparation, counting the day of preparation as day one. The roast beef's use-or-freeze-by date of April 14 meant it had been sitting in that refrigerator, available to be served, for at least 34 days past the date the manufacturer said it should have been used or frozen. The inspection took place on May 18.
The same food code requires that equipment surfaces that contact food be clean to sight. The ice machine shield was not.
CMS rated both violations at the lowest level of harm, describing them as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted that many residents were affected. That language, in the formal inspection framework, means the problems were widespread enough to touch the facility's general population rather than isolated to a single wing or a single resident's care.
Roberts Health Centre did not receive an Immediate Jeopardy citation. The violations, taken individually, are the kind that appear on inspection reports across the country every year. Expired food found in a refrigerator. A dirty ice machine. A food service director who knew the machine needed cleaning.
What the report does not explain is how long the roast beef had been there before the inspector arrived, or how long the pink substance had been building up inside the ice machine on the second floor. The cook knew the meat was expired. The Food Service Director acknowledged the ice machine. The inspection found both on the same morning tour.
Residents at Roberts Health Centre, like residents at any long-term care facility, eat what the kitchen prepares and drink water poured over ice from the machines on their floor. They are not in a position to check expiration dates on packages in the walk-in refrigerator or inspect the inside of the ice dispenser before they fill their cup.
The inspector did that for them, on a Tuesday morning in May, thirty-four days after the roast beef should have been gone.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Roberts Health Centre Inc from 2026-05-26 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
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: August 14, 2026 · Our methodology
Roberts Health Centre Inc in North Kingstown, RI was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 26, 2026.
Two packages of Hormel Natural Choice roast beef, use-or-freeze-by date of April 14, 2026, were still on the shelf at Roberts Health Centre on May 18.
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.