Jeni’s Finds Listeria, Shuts Stores a Second Time
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has again temporarily closed its ice cream shops after finding listeria contamination at its production facility.
In a blog post Friday morning, CEO John Lowe said the bacteria was found during a routine swabbing at its facility, taken as part of its monitoring program. Production at the facility stopped earlier in the week, and while the company has a theory about the problem and is testing it, the company is unsure when production will resume.
“Since resuming production in our kitchen on May 13, 2015, we have been testing every batch of ice cream we have made and holding it until we learned that the testing did not detect any Listeria,” Lowe wrote in the blog post. “So it is with complete confidence that I can say all of the ice cream that has been served in our shops since reopening on May 22 has been safe and is 100% Listeria-free.”
The shops that reopened May 22, he said, have been closed because of the lack of supply. Lowe added that the testing regimen worked as it was supposed to, and the presence of listeria was found before it could contaminate the ice cream.
In April, the Columbus, Ohio-based company said it was destroying more than 265 tons of ice cream — the equivalent of 15 tractor-trailer loads — after listeria was found in its production kitchen. Lowe said the move cost the company more than $2.5 million.
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