Blue Bell Still Finding Listeria In Factories, Not In The Ice Cream

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Beloved ice cream brand Blue Bell is still expanding its distribution again after last year’s Listeria contamination and massive recalls. The company issued an update last night about its production facilities with some potentially frightening information: there’s still Listeria in certain spots in their production facilities that can’t be eradicated. However, they assure the ice cream-eating public that new ice cream isn’t contaminated.

In their “facilities update,” the company explains that since Listeria is present in the environment, it’s impossible to eradicate it from a building entirely. What they can do is identify those areas and sanitize them frequently while also conducting tests to check for new sites of bacteria in the factory.

They also want customers to know that every batch is being tested. This is so important that they mention it twice in the update, and is clearly meant to reassure the public. While fans are happy to have the products back in stores, it’s understandable that customers might be skittish after recent reports about alleged conditions inside facilities and management cutting corners and failing to listen to employee concerns.

Listeria happens to be a foodborne pathogen that can survive being frozen, which is why its presence in ice cream is a particular threat. The Blue Bell outbreak killed three people and sent twelve to the hospital. In healthy people, infection with listeriosis causes fever and muscle aches, along with diarrhea and abdominal pain. Infection can be life-threatening to people who are elderly, young, or who have compromised immune systems.

Listeriosis is especially dangerous for pregnant women, since the infection generally goes beyond the intestinal tract (causing those muscle aches) and can affect the fetus, leading to miscarriage or stillbirth.

An update on our enhanced procedures at our production facilities [Blue Bell Creamery] (via Food Safety News)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist