UPDATE: Blue Bell's Oklahoma plant had no issues according to a state inspection on March 18, reports the Associated Press, where an inspector wrote "No Violations Observed!" and "Keep it up!"
Listeria had only been linked to Blue Bell's Brenham, TX, plant at the time of the inspection.
UPDATE: Blue Bell has expanded its recall to include Banana Pudding Ice Cream pints, which tested positive for listeria, and other products manufactured at the Broken Arrow plant, which were made on the same line and therefore could be contaminated as well. The additional products include ice cream varieties like mint chocolate, cookies 'n cream, and moo-illenium crunch as well as sherbert and a few half-gallon sizes.
Dive Brief:
- Major food retailers, including Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Kroger, have pulled Blue Bell Creameries ice cream products that originated from a Broken Arrow, OK, plant, where a listeria outbreak was reported last month.
- These retailers are still selling Blue Bell products made at other plants.
- Earlier this week, Blue Bell suspended operations at the Broken Arrow plant.
Dive Insight:
The specific products Blue Bell recalled last month were certain brands of Scoops, or "three 3 oz. institutional/food service ice cream cups of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla with tab lids," according to Food Business Review. As of April 6, listeria had sickened five adults in Kansas, three of whom died. All of the adults were being treated at the same hospital for unrelated reasons, and at least four of them, based on information available, began showing signs of the illness after drinking milkshakes made with Blue Bell's Scoops ice cream product, Food Safety News reports.
"Whole genome sequences of Listeria monocytogenes strains isolated from these ice cream products were highly related to sequences of Listeria isolated from four of the patients," reports Food Safety News.
