Blue Bell Creameries has signed a voluntary agreement with the Alabama Department of Public Health laying out a series of steps the company plans to take to control Listeria contamination before its products may legally be sold there again. The company has a plant in Sylacauga, AL, which is currently closed. Paul Kruse, Blue Bell’s president and CEO, signed similar agreements May 14, 2015, with health and agriculture officials representing the states of Texas and Oklahoma, respectively. The company operates two production facilities in its headquarters city of Brenham, TX, and one in Broken Arrow, OK., which are also temporarily shut down.
- Conducting root cause analyses to identify the potential for Listeria or actual sources;
- Retaining an independent microbiology expert to help establish and review controls to prevent the future introduction of Listeria;
- Notifying the Alabama Department of Public Health promptly of any presumptive positive test result for Listeria monocytogenes found in ingredients or finished product samples and providing the state agencies full access to all testing;
- Ensuring that the company’s Pathogen Monitoring Program for Listeria in the plant environment outlines how the company will respond to presumptive positive tests for Listeria species, and,
- Instituting a “test and hold” program to assure that products are safe before they are shipped or sold.
After the product recall and facilities shutdown, Kruse announced May 15 that Blue Bell was laying off or furloughing a large segment of its workforce, including those in 13 distribution centers in 10 states. He said then that about 1,450 full-time and part-time employees were being laid off and about 1,400 others were being furloughed. Those being laid off comprise about 37 percent of Blue Bell’s total workforce of about 3,900 employees. Those workers considered “essential to ongoing operations and cleaning and repair efforts” were not laid off or furloughed but had their pay reduced. It was reportedly the first layoff in the 108-year history of the family-owned company. Kruse has not publicly announced a schedule for the return of Blue Bell products to the marketplace but has said that when production resumes it would be limited and phased in over time. FDA reports from inspections of Blue Bell facilities were recently posted in response to a public records request from a Dallas newspaper. Four were posted detailing inspections of company facilities from 2007-2012, joining recent FDA inspection reports of three Blue Bell plants performed before and after the company’s total product recall and noting a long list of problems. While none of the earlier inspection reports indicated evidence of Listeria contamination, numerous violations of food safety protocols were observed by Texas state health officials, who reportedly did the 2007-2012 inspections under contract with FDA.