“We are excited to announce that Blue Bell Ice Cream is once again being made at our main production plant in Brenham”, said Greg Bridges, vice president of operations for Blue Bell. It’s nearly as if the whole thing never happened. No date has been set for when ice cream produced in Brenham will be for sale.
Advertisement
Blue Bell Creameries is in the second phase of its return plan and is scheduled to enter the third phase on December 14. Then it turned out that five people in a Kansas hospital were all infected with listeria-laced cups of Blue Bell ice cream they were fed upon arriving at the hospital. Four flavors of the company’s ice cream returned to store shelves on August 31. The compaay restarted its largest plant, in Brenham, on Wednesday, a milestone in its recovery from a listeria outbreak.
A Food and Drug Administration investigation subsequently revealed Blue Bell facilities had been testing positive for listeria since 2013, information that Blue Bell wasn’t required to report since the listeria was found in places around the factory but wasn’t found in the ice cream- because the company never actually tested the ice cream. Three of the cases were fatal – each of those traced to its Texas facility.
In May, the company put 1,400 employees on furlough with partial pay and laid off another 1,450. Three of those sickened later died.
Advertisement
Tours will not resume at this time at the Brenham facility, but the Country Store, Visitor Center and ice cream parlor are open to the public. “I just hope that everybody can come back and get their jobs back”. “For now we will produce a limited number of products at each facility”.
