Blue Bell Knew About Listeria Contamination Long Before Its Nationwide Recall

It comes as no surprise that giant corporations tend to sweep issues under the rug. But when those dirty secrets creep out into public awareness, we still can't help but feel our stomachs turn. This year alone we've had some heavy hitters, like Subway ignoring Jared Fogle's gut-wrenching, problematic history and the discovery that Peanut Corporation of America executives knowingly sold salmonella-contaminated peanut butter. Today, news broke that Blue Bell—the nation's third-largest ice cream supplier—might have been fully aware of the unsanitary conditions at the Texas facility which caused its unprecedented recall of 8 million gallons of ice cream in 23 states. 

In a recent report from CBS, Blue Bell employees are now coming forward about their working conditions, claiming that management ignored their sanitation complaints. Because of this, many of these facility workers feel remorseful for the three people who died, and also for the 10 others who fell seriously ill, due to listeria contamination from the outbreak. These statements come nearly two months after Blue Bell announced it was officially back in business and began shipping pints to stores. 

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According to Terry Schultz, a machine operator who worked at the headquarters facility in Brenham, TX for seven months before the shutdown, machines would act up and spew ice cream onto the floor, where it would pool and breed bacteria all day—because cleaning the spills would apparently slow down production. Schultz says that when he complained to his supervisor, nothing was done. From his perspective, production is valued more important than cleanliness. 

"A lot of things were over looked and passed on in favor of volume and expansion and I think that's the part that people aren't seeing," he said.  Other Brenham employees noted an abundance of water that would collect on the floor and the walls—creating a breeding ground for listeria that's particularly dangerous in dairy production—and cited rain trickling down from the roof, entering the machinery areas inside.

These claims are consistent with FDA findings from March, which include violations like condensation dripping into the ice cream, dirty equipment, poor storage and food-handling practices, and ceiling paint chipping directly above an ice cream mixer. However, according to a five-year Blue Bell veteran Gerald Bland, nearly all inspections were pre-planned. "We never, the whole time I was there, had a surprise inspection," he told CBS. 

In a scathing criticism of how the company handled this recall, Fortunereports that Blue Bell discovered listeria in a plant two years prior but failed to solve the problem. The brand's slow response is known to industry experts as "recall creep," where executives hold out and take very limited action, hoping the issue will fix itself until they are forced to expand the recall repeatedly. According to Fortune, this has occured with Blue Bell five times since 2010.

The most unsettling discovery in this case is that the strain of listeria which caused this summer's massive recall can actually be traced to 10 listeriosis cases from 2010, according to the CDC bacterial registry. That means there has been listeria in parts Blue Bell's production line for nearly five years. 

Here's how Blue Bell responded: After first learning of a listeria contamination at its South Carolina facility on February 13, the company made no public announcement. Instead, it retrieved 10 products from the factory line. On March 9, the company learned this same listeria strain was linked to cases from 2010. The next day it halted production in Brenham, TX. It wasn't until March 13 that Blue Bell announced a recall but stressed, if not heralded, it as the first in its 108-year history. However, that first recall only applied to a limited amount of products until, on March 22, Blue Bell learned deaths had occurred in Kansas from ice cream produced in Oklahoma. It then expanded the recall. Then finally on April 20, after three separate tests added additional ice creams to the recall lineup and the CDC issued its own warnings, Blue Bell officially recalled all of its products. 

FDA inspection reports also show that the company found bacteria in Oklahoma on floors and catwalks on 17 occasions beginning in March 2013. What's more, production at the plant did not halt once the 2015 recall took effect. According to Bland, "nothing changed" and production continued for two months, claiming that it wasn't until the last two weeks that "they changed wash-up procedures" and started retraining employees. 

In a statement to CBS, Blue Bell wrote: "We are committed to ensuring that we are producing a safe product through our enhanced manufacturing procedures, including increased focus on sanitation and cleaning, ongoing evaluation from independent microbiologists, voluntary agreements with our state regulators, and finally, a test and hold procedure." Yet the flagship in Brenham remains closed. 

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