Blue Bell Creamery, home of the famous ice cream, has announced a voluntary recall of some of its products.
The warning stems from possible contamination of Listeria monocytogenes in cookie dough used in the maker’s cookie dough ice cream. Blue Bell’s distribution of the suspect product was in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Ice cream with the following code date ID number should not be eaten and should be returned to place of purchase for a refund: 082618226, 080418222, 081818224, 081518242, and 082418242. The product number is located on the bottom of each container.
Blue Bell stresses that no illnesses have been reported to date.
Blue Bell’s website posts this warning about Listeria: “Listeria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.”
The alert comes on the heels of Blue Bell’s previous controversial recall in April 2015, due to what the FDA described as sanitation problems. Blue Bell had to stop production and distribution of its ice cream to 25 states due to the same bacterial contamination.
There were 10 cases of Listeria reported in four states. Three people in Kansas later died. The ice cream maker knew a full two years of problems before issuing the recall, according to The Wall Street Journal.