Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams Shuts Down Again Over Listeria Contamination

stack_of_pints__05446-1427209886-1280-1280That didn’t last long. About a month ago, Ohio-based Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams was reopening its scoop shops following an April recall of all of its products for listeria contamination. But this morning, the company’s CEO announced some bad news.

“We have found Listeria in our production facility again,” writes John Lowe in a statement posted to the company website. “We discovered the Listeria through routine swabbing as part of our monitoring program.”

Lowe says that Jeni’s halted production earlier in the week and has been looking into how they could be getting contaminated by the nasty bacteria again.

“We have a theory and are testing that theory,” he explains. “We don’t yet have a timeline for the resumption of production.”

The company resumed production in mid-May following a full-scale recall of its products. Jeni’s stores reopened on May 22.

An FDA probe of the original listeria problem found that Jeni’s was not fully compliant with cleaning and testing procedures. Lowe claims that Jeni’s has been testing every batch of ice cream it’s been putting out since resuming production and maintains that “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 company has retail locations in eight cities in seven different states across the country. Without enough safe ice cream to keep the stores stocked, the scoop shops are closing again until the problem is resolved and production can begin again.

[via Eater]

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