Listeria Found in Blue Bell Ice Cream Made in Alabama

A private lab claims to have found listeria in Blue Bell Ice Cream made at the company's Sylacauga, Alabama plant.

It's a hot weekend in Tuscaloosa, you may be like me, thinking about ice cream. Blue Bell has always been a favorite for me and was saddened by the listeria concerns which led to a massive recall and a complete production shut down. Today, curious about when this beat the heat treat would be available again, I find more concerns about listeria from an area plant.

In a report featured Saturday (June 6th) by the Washington Post, a 75 year old man in Florida developed meningitis, the Blue Bell Ice Cream he had in the freezer was tested by a private lab. Their finding, the ice cream marked as being made at the Blue Bell Sylacauga plant tested positive for listeria.

This new development adds to the company's woes, as they've been blamed for 10 other listeria cases across 4 different states and even three deaths in Kansas.

What is Listeria? FoodSafety.gov explains, "Listeria is the name of a bacteria found in soil and water and some animals, including poultry and cattle. It can be present in raw milk and foods made from raw milk. It can also live in food processing plants and contaminate a variety of processed meats."

FoodSafety.gov explains symptons of Listeria infection with "fever, stiff neck, confusion, weakness, vomiting, sometimes preceded by diarrhea." Older people, pregnant woman and those with a weak immune run the highest risk.

Now, contaminated ice cream claims have been tied to each of the the Blue Bell plants, including Sylacauga, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and it's headquarters in Brenham, Texas. You know this prolonged shut down has a devastating impact on this brand which has been around since 1907. The creamery has cut 1,450 jobs so far, as questions remain on when production may resume.

I wonder if they will ever be able to recover from this? You may be like me, a fan of this brand. However, will you remain skeptical about buying their ice cream in the future?