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We have some breaking news right now. We're learning about a listeria outbreak that's mostly affecting people who either live here in Florida or have traveled to our state. The CDC says most of the sick people were in Florida about a month before they got sick. In May 2022, Kristen Hopkins, her husband Frank Imbruglia, and their two daughters traveled from Massachusetts to Florida for a wedding. After a few fun-filled days in the Sunshine State, the family returned home to share some exciting news.
Kristen was 11 weeks pregnant with their third child, a baby boy. They couldn't wait for his arrival, but it would not be an easy pregnancy. By the end of May, Kristen Hopkins said she developed, quote, mild cramping coupled with persistent diarrhea. The pain never went away and only grew more severe as the weeks passed by. By mid-June, Kristen was also experiencing intense headaches.
After waking up shivering and pale one morning, Frank drove Kristen to the hospital where she was put into intensive care. The doctors informed Kristen that she had miscarried. Her blood tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes. For those of you new here, Listeria is a deadly bacteria that can be found almost everywhere and it has evolved so it thrives in cold moist areas like refrigerators.
When ingested by humans, typically via contaminated food, a life-threatening infection can follow. Older adults, immunocompromised and pregnant women are the most affected. Symptoms, which include fever, vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes take up to two weeks to appear. It's an unpleasant way to go.
Historically, sources of Listeria outbreaks have been challenging to pinpoint, but now strains can be identified and traced through DNA sampling. Listeria has a genetic fingerprint. Epidemiologists can link multiple cases together if the samples are closely related. In this case, Kristen Hopkins' Listeria strain matched Mary Billman's, a 79-year-old woman in Illinois who died in January.
There were also matches in New York, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
When interviewed, all of those patients reported that they had recently spent time in Florida. Many of them claimed to have eaten ice cream. A listeria outbreak is being linked to an ice cream company based in Sarasota. The CDC is advising customers to throw out products from Big Olaf Creamery. According to the company's website, Big Olaf ice cream is made at a local creamery near Sarasota's Amish village of Pinecraft. It's hand-mixed with the finest ingredients.
insured in batch freezers by local Amish craftsmen. The company was founded in 1982. Their ice cream is only sold in Florida. There are 15 retail locations throughout the state. Health authorities recommended that they all close immediately. On Friday, July 1st, 2022, Big Olaf Creamery was informed of an outbreak investigation by the Florida Department of Health and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that one person had died and 22 others had been hospitalized. Big Olaf Creamery was the suspected culprit. The statement continued, "As a result of this investigation, Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota, Florida is voluntarily contacting retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products."
Consumers who have Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream at home should throw away any remaining product. While it is true that Big Olaf said they had stopped producing and distributing its ice cream on July 1, 2022, the company did not issue a recall of existing product. As a result, restaurants, retail stores, and other vendors continued to unknowingly sell the potentially tainted ice cream for at least another week. Big Olaf's owners were defiant.
A post on the company's Facebook page addressed the Listeria investigation. Quote,
The original report we got from the Florida Department of Health on Friday, July 1st, was that there are 23 cases reported. The first one reported was January 2021. Six out of the 23 patients mentioned having consumed Big Olaf ice cream, but nothing has been proven. We have been cooperating with the Florida Department of Health, FDACS, and the FDA as soon as we were informed about the situation.
We have been transparent and have answered all their questions and provided them with all the information requested from us as the health and well-being of the public is our first priority. A Florida Department of Health spokesperson told the New York Post that Big Olaf's actions were surprising. Quote, We expected them to do so, but judging by what we've heard reported in the media and what the company has posted on its social media, it looks like they continue to ship and make the product.
Well tonight, nearly a week after the CDC warned consumers, the Florida Department of Health finally issued a warning to stop eating big, all-off ice cream. Furthermore, the Florida Department of Health did not have the regulatory authority to force a shutdown of a business or a product recall.
That power rested in the hands of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who first had to test Big Olaf's facilities for the bacteria. A conveyor beam, floor drain, inside a pipe. The Florida Department of Agriculture says these are the places Listeria was detected inside Big Olaf's processing facility in Sarasota. Nine of 100 samples from surfaces at Big Olaf's manufacturing plant tested positive for Listeria.
A few days later, 16 of 17 ice cream samples from the production facility returned positive tests. On July 13, 2022, the FDACS issued both a shutdown order for Big Olaf's plant and a formal recall of its products. What this shows is that this manufacturing facility had a severe listeria problem, which shows a sanitation problem. Food Safety Attorney Bill Marler told Food Safety News,
The biggest surprise is that the facility and stores stayed open for at least a week after it was known there was a problem. Why didn't the company shut down?
Why didn't the state shut them down? If somebody gets sick from the ice cream that's being sold in the last couple of three or four days, and they get sick and die, they're opening themselves up to personal liability. Not liability for the company, but personal liability and potentially, I would argue, criminal liability. According to the CDC, there are 25 confirmed cases in the Big Olaf Creamery Listeria outbreak.
The families of Kristen Hopkins and Mary Billman are suing the ice cream company. No criminal charges have been filed yet, but there is precedent. In fact, just a few weeks after the state of Florida shut down Big Olaf, the former CEO of a Texas-based ice cream company stood trial over his actions and inactions during a multi-state Listeria outbreak.
What happens to an executive who was aware of a life-threatening problem, but chose to drag his feet? Find out on this episode of Swindled.
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Where have the years gone? It seems like only yesterday we called this home. There's no place like home. It has a certain magic all its own. And memories are made there every day. A lifetime of good times shared along the way.
Bluebell Creameries started as the Brenham Creamery Company in Brenham, Texas, more than 115 years ago. The company made its first deliveries with a horse and buggy. The widespread adoption of refrigeration had yet to happen, and listeria monocytogenes had not even been discovered. Things sure have changed since then.
But Blue Bell Ice Cream has survived and thrived, partly thanks to the ice cream, which is delicious, and partly thanks to the steady hand of a former school teacher named E.F. Kruse. Under Mr. Kruse's leadership, the company navigated great depressions and world wars without laying off a soul. The little creamery company was beloved in Brenham. In 1930, E.F. Kruse officially changed the name to Blue Bell in honor of his favorite Texas wildflower.
When E.F. Kruse suddenly died in 1951, his son Ed took over. Under Ed Kruse and his brother Howard, Blue Bell switched its production focus to ice cream instead of butter. Soon after, the company expanded carefully across the southern United States, one small territory at a time. It wasn't as easy as shipping the ice cream by train or truck to different states. Even today, Blue Bell maintains a completely insular delivery system.
This means that Blue Bell manages the ice cream from production until it sits on a grocery store freezer shelf. The company uses its own employees and fleet to ensure that the product retains its quality until a customer takes it home. In 1992, Blue Bell opened a production plant in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma to deliver this fresh, homemade, country-style ice cream to the surrounding areas.
In 1996, the company opened a plant in Alabama to do the same. By then, Blue Bell was a full-fledged, multi-state ice cream distribution company. It became the nation's number three top-selling brand, but Blue Bell reinforced its image of a small-town creamery through its cute, country-style marketing. The reason Blue Bell ice cream tastes so good is because the cows think Brenham is heaven. People love it.
President George W. Bush reportedly received shipments of Blue Bell's vanilla, chocolate and strawberry flavors to Camp David on a regular basis. Guests would watch in horror as he licked the scoops rapidly with his serpent-like tongue. Astronauts have also requested Blue Bell be included on packages bound for the International Space Station and in some places on Earth. Even the sheer mention of the ice cream could lead to people dancing in the street.
That guy isn't even trying to play it cool, but Paul Kruse did. Paul Kruse is the son of Ed Kruse, the CEO of Bluebell, and Ed Kruse wanted his son to join the family business. But Paul Kruse said, So a lawyer Paul Kruse became.
He earned a degree in accounting from Texas A&M and then went to law school at Baylor. When Paul passed the bar in 1980, he moved back to his small hometown of Brenham and started his own private practice. Every time his father asked him to join Blue Bell, Paul Kruse would adamantly say no. It wasn't until 1985 that Paul finally relented. His father had convinced him to work as the company's general counsel.
Besides, Paul Kruse had already joined the board of Bluebell a few years earlier. He had a vested interest, and it was a family business, and his family was asking him for help. What kind of person would say no? Twenty years later, both Ed and his brother Howard Kruse had retired from the top of Bluebell. 49-year-old Paul Kruse was handed the reins in 2004, right before the company's 100th anniversary.
In just a few years, Paul grew Bluebell's sales by 70%. By expanding the company's geographical reach even further, Bluebell could now be found in 22 states. The private company was grossing an estimated $300 to $500 million in sales annually. But why stop there? In 2014, Bluebell unveiled plans for a distribution center in Las Vegas. And in early 2015, the company started construction on its 5th Houston Area Distribution Center.
But all that growth was worrisome for some long-time consumers. Thankfully, Paul Kruse knew what to do. I think we'll continue to do what we're doing and do it right and do it well. It's not about doing things right, but really doing the right thing. And that's what we try to practice. Soon, that practice would be put to the test.
On February 12, 2015, during a routine inspection of a Blue Bell distribution center in South Carolina, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control discovered the presence of Listeria and its random sampling of products. Both the chocolate chip country cookie sandwiches and the Great Divide bars were contaminated. Both of those products had come from the Blue Bell plant in Brenham, Texas.
Once alerted, the Texas Department of State Health Services took samples from the Brenham plant and found a third product contaminated with listeria. It was a three-ounce, single-serving ice cream named Scoops. Unfortunately, many of those three-ounce, single-serving Blue Bell Scoops had been shipped to Kansas, where they were used in milkshakes served to patients at the Via Christi St. Francis Hospital in Wichita.
From December 2013 to January 2015, three people died in that hospital from listeriosis. Two others had become ill but survived. None of the five patients were infected with the bacteria before they arrived. The Food and Drug Administration announced the link between the outbreak and Blue Bell on March 13, 2015, in response for the first time in its 108-year history.
Bluebell announced a recall of 10 different products made on the same production line called the Gram and Brenham, which the company stopped using permanently on March 10th. The Gram was so contaminated that it was unsalvageable.
So far, Blue Bell has documented eight cases of listeria, five in Kansas, three of which were fatal, and three others in Texas. Listeria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in people with weakened immune systems. And here's an odd twist. Most of the people diagnosed in Kansas were served the ice cream while in the hospital being treated for unrelated illnesses.
About a week later, another Bluebell product tested positive for listeria in a Kansas hospital. This time it was a single-serving institutional product with a tabbed lid produced by Bluebell's plant in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. In response, the recall expanded and the production facility in Broken Arrow was voluntarily shut down.
The Broken Arrow operations will be suspended so that our team of expert consultants can conduct a careful and complete examination to determine the exact cause of the contamination," Paul Kruse said on behalf of Blue Bell in a statement. "We have notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of our action, and we remain committed to being transparent with that federal agency. Once our investigation is complete and we have made all necessary improvements, it will return to operation."
Our other plants continued to operate and supply our products to retail stores and institutional customers. Some major regional and nationwide retailers decided to take no chances. In early April, the Texas-based grocery store chain H-E-B pulled all Blue Bell products from its shelves and just ate the cost. Kroger soon followed, and so did Walmart, who probably publicly subsidized its losses.
The Houston Astros also announced that they would temporarily stop selling Blue Bell products at its stadium and disposed of them in the team's dented trash cans. And tragically, Texas A&M University stopped selling Blue Bell ice cream at its baseball games too, which were played at Blue Bell Park. Things got worse for Blue Bell before they got better. The recall expanded to 25 products as the number of sickened people continued to grow.
There were five cases in Kansas, including the three deaths, three cases in Texas, one in Arizona, and one in Oklahoma. There were also cases like David Shockley, who the CDC had not officially linked and reported as part of the Blue Bell outbreak. David Shockley was a 31-year-old former high school valedictorian who had moved from Maryland to Houston to work as an assistant executive director of a nursing home. In October 2013, David became deathly ill.
It started with a headache so severe that he called an ambulance. The EMTs arrived on the scene, diagnosed David Shockley with a migraine at the hospital, and sent him home. The next day, David failed to show up to work. Concerned colleagues performed a welfare check and found David unresponsive, pale, and struggling to breathe. He had a fever of 107. Doctors weren't sure if he would survive.
David Shockley spent five days on a ventilator and 18 days in ICU for acute respiratory failure, septic shock and seizures. When he finally regained consciousness on the sixth day, David could not walk, talk, swallow or move his body. He had suffered significant brain damage. David Shockley's condition is permanent. He moved back to his childhood home with his parents and requires full-time care.
The little 3-ounce Blue Bell containers were always in stock at the nursing home where David worked, and he would occasionally treat himself to a small cup. Unfortunately, David had ulcerative colitis and took medication that weakened his immune system, allowing listeria to ravage his body. It wasn't until the Blue Bell recall two years later that everything clicked. David Shockley's family sued the company in the spring of 2015.
Some of the grocery stores that voluntarily recalled Bluebell products began restocking the ice cream in mid-April 2015. Bluebell assured the stores that their products were safe to consume, but they weren't. A week later, after continued positive listeria tests at its facilities, Bluebell officially recalled all of its products.
The next time you visit your local grocery store, you will likely notice some of the freezer cases are pretty empty. Yeah, Blue Bell Creameries has pulled all of its products off the shelves over heightened concerns about the possibility of listeria contamination. Blue Bell's president and CEO has ordered delivery drivers at distribution centers like this one to collect all of their products from stores that
drastic move that they hope will put an end to what they describe as a heartbreaking situation. We are heartbroken over this situation and apologize to all of our loyal Blue Bell fans and customers. Our entire history has been dedicated to making the very best and highest quality ice cream we possibly could and we're committed to fixing the problem.
Blue Bell CEO Paul Kruse announced that the company had completely shut down production to clean its equipment and overhaul procedures. Kruse made no mention of the sick and dead, but he did reference the 8 million pounds of ice cream that had been destroyed.
Well, almost 8 million pounds. According to the Houston Press, some of the delivery drivers tasked with retrieving the products from stores had helped themselves. "I was hungry and was going in the dumpster anyway, so I didn't see any harm," an unnamed delivery driver said, and added, "The only people who ate our ice cream and got listeria were already weak."
The ice cream eating public's response to the recall was varied. Some admitted that they would be hesitant to purchase Blue Bell in the future, but at the same time, others didn't blame the company at all and refused to live in fear.
They manufacture the ice cream made from cows and the cows apparently grew the listeria, not necessarily Bluebell's fault. A couple years ago there was a recall on lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, so it's almost like you can't let fear rule your life. So I might back off it for a while, but not long.
"I had some last Thursday night as a snack. I didn't lay awake worrying about having eaten it," a 74-year-old woman told the media at a Blue Bell prayer vigil in Brenham. Hundreds of people gathered to support the company. Blue Bell was the lifeblood of their community, the largest taxpayer, the biggest electricity customer.
All of that revenue melted away in an instant. And not only was Bluebell the town's largest employer, but many other businesses depended on the tourism that the factory attracted. In the wake of the scandal, those tourism dollars had all but dried up.
The town rallied around the company. Loyalists wore t-shirts that read, quote, I get cranky without my bluebell. Or, I support bluebell. And almost every household in Brindham displayed yard signs that read, God bless bluebell. Or they flew come and take it flags featuring a gallon carton of ice cream in place of the cannon. The American spirit was in full effect. Who cares about people dying when I personally am inconvenienced?
The more entrepreneurial type saw an opportunity. Dozens of Craigslist ads appeared selling new and used containers of Blue Bell ice cream. One gallon Listeria Free Blue Bell, $10,000, only missing one bowl, read an ad from Fort Worth. More reasonable sellers like one in Waco were offering unopened containers for as low as $2,500. Serious inquiries only.
Bluebell Creameries was grateful for the outpouring of support, but wasn't sure when its products would return to the market. We're just trying to focus on the cleanup and making sure we have a safe product, spokeswoman Jenny Van Dorf told CNN. It's the right thing to do, and it's what we have to do so people will trust our product. Van Dorf also tried to ease the concerns of its community and its employees. Quote,
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The most difficult thing I've had to deal with in my life is the incredibly tough decision to reduce pay and lay off some of our great people at Blue Bell. We're all part of one team and we tried to keep everyone on the payroll for as long as possible. The whole process of getting ready to make our ice cream again and to get it right is taking longer than we anticipated, particularly at our Brenham Plant location.
We do not have a firm timeline for when we will start producing again and when we do, we will start up in a more limited way. So we do need to reduce salaries and the size of our workforce. We have to be sure we are financially strong enough to get back to market for our employees, our communities, and customers. We are working with those employees who have been laid off in whatever manner we can assist them.
This is a terribly sad day for all of us at the company and for me personally. We are needing to take this step to ensure a successful return and the possibility of a strong future for Blue Bell Creameries. But it still hurts a lot. On May 15, 2015, Blue Bell Creameries announced a massive round of layoffs, the first one in the history of the company. 1,400 employees were let go, almost 40% of its workforce.
1,400 others were furloughed. Resuming production was taking longer than expected. The company hadn't been able to pinpoint the source of contamination at the massive Brenham plant. However, several machines and ingredient buckets in Oklahoma were identified as possible culprits of its own localized disuse. More recently, ice cream produced at the Alabama facility had tested positive for Listeria. All three Blue Bell production plants were contaminated.
There was no clear timeline for Bluebell's return, and even when it did return, nobody was quite sure what that would look like, or if it would even happen. Overhauling operations was going to require a significant investment of time and money, luckily for Bluebell. Billionaires like ice cream too.
On July 14th, 2015, Sid Bass, the Fort Worth tycoon who inherited an oil company from his uncle, chipped in $125 million in exchange for one-third of the ownership.
Blue Bell was back in business. That's another step towards Blue Bell ice cream getting back on store shelves. The creamery will run a test production at a manufacturing plant on July the 20th. This will be the first time machines have run since the deadly Listeria outbreak earlier this year. While the test is on schedule, there is no timeline for return to Blue Bell on our store shelves.
A month later, Bluebell made it official. The company announced that its ice cream would return to some store shelves on August 31st, 2015. When that day arrived, lines of drooling mouths wrapped around supermarket aisles. People couldn't wait to taste that sweet, bacteria-free ice cream. It had been a little more than four months since Bluebell recalled all of its products, but it felt like a lifetime.
The Houston Chronicle even spotted some absolute animal named Stan eating a gallon of Blue Bell with his hands just beyond the checkout line. Speaking of sad soulless people and life-threatening bacteria, Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed Blue Bell back by using his public office to tweet out support for a private company on the day of its gradual return to the market. "It's a Blue Bell day in Texas and I'm making up for lost time," it read.
and there was a photograph included of the governor smiling while holding a big scoop of homemade vanilla. Unfortunately, after that day, Governor Greg Abbott would never walk again. What? That's true. Anyway, a day after Bluebell's triumphant return, the company resumed production at its Broken Arrow, Oklahoma facility.
The main plant in Brenham, Texas, finally reopened in late November, just in time to manufacture Blue Bell's peppermint flavor for the holidays, even though the source of the Brenham listeria contamination was never found. There were theories, though. The Houston Chronicle interviewed more than a dozen former employees who worked at Blue Bell's plant in Brenham.
They told the newspaper about how cleaning crews regularly ran out of hot water and were unable to disinfect properly, and how it had been that way for 10-15 years. They described how they reused the cardboard transportation sleeves, tracking in who knows what from who knows where, and how the leftover fruit goo would sometimes flow back into the tank after it had been cleaned.
How a dirty air vent dripped water on the boxes of fudge bomb sticks. How certain machines were rarely cleaned because they were running 24 hours a day by a company struggling to satisfy demand. CBS spoke with additional former employees who corroborated those stories. The response I got at one point was, is that all you're going to do is come in here and bitch every afternoon?
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there was plenty to bitch about. An investigation of Bluebell's own records revealed that the company had found strong evidence of listeria on the floor in front of a freezer at its Broken Arrow, Oklahoma facility as far back as 2013. That same floor tested positive in 2014 and 2015. So did a catwalk behind a flavor tank.
None of those results were reported. Companies are only required to notify the FDA if they find a reasonable probability that people will get sick.
Bluebell simply cleaned and sanitized the problem areas using their usual solutions. FDA records show Bluebell's own testing found listeria in its Oklahoma plant as far back as 2013. The laws at the time did not require Bluebell to share that information with regulators.
Also in Oklahoma, inspection reports from 2009 described condensate from a vent falling into gallon-sized buckets on the production line. One drop per minute, right into your frozen sherbet. Was that frozen sherbet contaminated with listeria? Nobody knows, because Bluebell's environmental testing plan did not require tests of the ice cream or any of the surfaces that touched the food directly. You cannot find something that you are not looking for.
Former employee Gerald Bland told CBS that Bluebell's flagship location in Brenham had similar aquatic issues. On the wall by the three-gallon machine, if it had rained real hard and water set on the roof,
It would just trickle down that wall. Rainwater? Yeah. From the roof? From the roof. Would get into the factory? Yeah. But why would Blue Bell, a food company, turn a blind eye to such pressing sanitation hazards? It's all about the money. Oh, right. I should know that by now.
If Bluebell's own internal reports were to be believed, then Bluebell and Paul Kruse knew about the sanitation issues and possible Listeria contaminations at its Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama facilities before the outbreak. Yet they chose to do nothing different. It wasn't a mistake or an accident by a bunch of good old boys in a barn somewhere churning butter like the commercials would lead you to believe.
No, this was a deliberate choice by a titan of the industry to not adequately address lingering health hazards to which the company's loyal customers were exposed.
Instead, Paul Kruse and Bluebell offered partial recalls. They tried to stamp out small fires with their feet while the entire building was burning behind them. By the time Bluebell did the right thing, people had lost their lives. David Shockley lost his future. People lost their jobs.
Bluebell saved a penny. Was it criminal? That depends on what Bluebell executives knew when they knew it and how they responded to the Listeria outbreak. All of those matters were still yet to be determined.
This investigation into Bluebell is being led by the same Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted the Peanut Corporation of America. The company's owner, Stuart Parnell, got 28 years for shipping salmonella-contaminated peanut products. That is the longest sentence ever for a food safety-related crime.
Sumer alert for you this morning. Bluebell is recalling two flavors of ice cream over listeria concerns. The company says out of an abundance of caution, a voluntary recall is in place for packages of chocolate chip cookie dough and cookie two-step. The company said some cookie dough from a third-party supplier could contain listeria.
On September 22, 2016, about a year after Bluebell had returned to stores, the company announced a recall of select products manufactured at its plant in Alabama. But this time it wasn't Bluebell's fault. The FDA had found listeria at the facility of a third-party cookie dough supplier. No ice cream products were found to be contaminated, but Bluebell destroyed them anyway. The company was now taking an abundance of caution in its approach to sanitation and listeria.
Because of the 2015 outbreak, Bluebell had been penalized by the state of Texas, named in federal lawsuits, and was currently being criminally investigated by the U.S. Justice Department. So it was probably wise to play it safe. The precautions were also government mandated. Agreements with health officials in the wake of the recall required the company to report any positive listeria tests to the states where it operated production facilities.
Bluebell abided by those requirements for a little more than a year before it decided it was a little overboard. "Given the extent of the 2015 company-wide recall, it was reasonable for Bluebell to begin with an extra cautious approach," an attorney for the company wrote to the FDA. "But it is now time to transition to the industry norm, having established they have an effective listeria prevention program in each of its three facilities."
a return to normalcy. That's all Bluebell wanted, a fresh start. To spur the long Paul Cruze retired as president and chairman of the company in early 2017. He remained on the board of directors but for the first time, a non-Cruze family member, Ricky Dixon, became president of Bluebell. Later that year, two investors sued the company.
The lawsuit claimed that Bluebell's mishandling of the Listeria outbreak had lost shareholders significant value. It's estimated that the company's sales fell by about half the year after, all because the company's executives and board members quote, "willfully disregarded their obligation to operate its facilities to sound industry standards." Bluebell would ultimately agree to pay $15 million to settle with the investors who sued.
The company was one step closer to putting all these bacteria scares behind it, but nobody could have predicted what happened next.
The video on Twitter shows a woman opening up a tub of Blue Bell ice cream, taking a big ol' lick out of the top of it, and then putting it right back. Now this has been viewed more than 10 million times, and this video had some people asking why Blue Bell does not put one of those plastic films, you know, on the inside of the lid, like some of the other brands out there do.
In response to the video, several people actually blamed Blue Bell for not having a better seal. Curtis said if food safety was actually a priority there would be a pull-off seal. It's either laziness or greed of not wanting to spend the extra two cents of material per product. Oh my goodness. I know, I know, I know. People are crazy.
On June 29th, 2019, a video reposted on Twitter showed an unnamed young woman in an unknown grocery store opening a gallon of Blue Bell ice cream, licking it, and putting it back on the freezer shelf. Blue Bell sent out a notice to its distribution centers to help identify the store's location. It was in Lufkin, Texas.
The Lufkin licker and her cheerleader boyfriend were visible in surveillance videos. She was a minor, or else she would have faced up to 20 years in prison for tampering with food. Well y'all, it has happened yet again, this time much closer to home. An Assumption Parish man is locked up this morning for, yes, licking a tub of Blue Bell ice cream at a grocery store. A week later, a man in Louisiana was identified and arrested for a copycat lick.
36-year-old Laniece Martin claimed it was just a prank. He had purchased the ice cream he was seen licking on video, and he had the receipt to prove it. But nobody was laughing. A year later, that same man was taken to the emergency room to remove a disposable cup that he had stuck to his face with Gorilla Glue.
Even though the internet is full of videos of people licking far more interesting things, the Bluebell challenge became a short-lived viral sensation in the land of dunces. Bluebell did not appreciate the pre-promotion either.
The company issued a statement admonishing the online trend, "The safety of our ice cream is our highest priority, and we work hard to maintain the highest level of confidence of our customers." Sure, maybe the safety of its ice cream and customers is Blue Bell's highest priority these days, but on May 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that that hasn't always been the case.
A document filed today in the U.S. District Court in Austin details how prosecutors say the company's former CEO and other executives covered up a listeria problem they knew about for half a decade. Friday, Blue Bell Creameries agreed to plead guilty to two charges of distributing adulterated ice cream products and will pay nearly $20 million in fines.
That's less than 1% of the cash the creamery brought in in over five years where the Department of Justice said they knew about Listeria problems but worked to keep them a secret. Former CEO Paul Kruse is being charged with seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. Charges each carry a possible penalty of 20 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine.
The DOJ's criminal investigation concluded with Bluebell pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges and agreeing to pay $19.3 million in criminal fines and forfeitures. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas alleged that the company violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by distributing ice cream products manufactured in unsanitary conditions and contaminated with listeria and then shipping those contaminated products across state lines.
Former Bluebell president and CEO Paul Kruse was charged with seven felony counts of wire fraud and conspiracy for his alleged efforts to obtain money from Bluebell's customers using false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises. Kruse was accused of concealing, quote, "...potential and or confirmed listeria contamination in Bluebell products from certain Bluebell customers."
In the early stages of the 2015 outbreak, Paul Kruse allegedly directed employees to tell customers that there was an unspecified issue with the manufacturing machine when they asked why products were being removed from their stores. The former Blue Bell chief had also directed a company employee to stop testing for Listeria in 2011 after two samples returned positive. Kruse then ordered a different employee to destroy the records of the positive tests and never speak of it again.
When the FDA made Bluebell aware of the outbreak, Paul Kruse promised the FDA that Bluebell would recall its products as quickly as possible, but did not immediately issue a recall. Additionally, on February 17, 2015, about a month before the outbreak was made public,
Paul Kruse rejected the idea of sending out a press release to alert consumers about two products that tested positive for Listeria. The unaware public continued to consume the potentially contaminated ice cream that they had already bought. "We look forward to telling the whole story of how my client, along with all of the other employees at Blue Bell, did the best they could with the information they had at the time," said Paul Kruse's high-priced Houston lawyer.
We have confidence that a Texas jury will see it that way and let Bluebell get back to making the best ice cream in America. Paul Kruse was expected to plead not guilty to all charges until all of those charges were dismissed. On July 16, 2020, Kruse's defense team successfully argued that the U.S. District Court for Western Texas lacked jurisdiction over the felony charges because the DOJ did not obtain a grand jury indictment.
A grand jury indictment was unsealed three months later, and Paul Kruse was once again charged with seven counts of conspiracy and fraud. 66-year-old Kruse and his defense team argued that the statute of limitations for the government to bring charges related to the Listeria outbreak that happened more than five years ago had expired. A federal judge denied that motion, and Paul Kruse pleaded not guilty in November 2020.
But the trial didn't begin until August 1st, 2022. By the time it started, Kruse's indictment had been thinned. The Department of Justice agreed to drop one count of wire fraud related to an email in which Bluebell fell short of fully disclosing the Listeria contamination to a Maryland distributor who asked about the closure of the Broken Arrow plant. During the trial, Bluebell's new president, Ricky Dixon, testified against his, quote, friend, Paul Kruse,
Dixon confirmed that Paul Kruse alone determined the company's messaging during the outbreak. Dixon also claimed that he recommended an immediate recall, but Paul Kruse decided on the slow withdrawal approach instead. The trial took eight full days. The final four days were jury deliberations. On the fourth day, the judge made an announcement. In the afternoon of Tuesday, August 9, 2022, the above-referenced case was submitted to the jury for deliberation.
On the afternoon of August 15, 2022, after deliberating for four days, the jury advised the court that they were hopelessly deadlocked, and after a discussion with the parties, the court excused the jurors. A mistrial. Paul Kruse was free to go. It is currently unclear if the U.S. Department of Justice will pursue another trial. So, until then, enjoy your ice cream.
Because it could make you sick.
The company's saying the ice cream may be contaminated with listeria. For parents to check out their freezers this morning, turns out some ice cream that was sold at ShopRite, PriceRite, and Fresh Grocery Stores being recalled. ShopRite and PriceRite brands of orange cream bars and ice cream bars. Officials say they could be contaminated.
with listeria. If you buy ice cream bars at Giant Eagle or Aldi, listen up. There is a recall of two different Field Brook Foods ice cream bars because of possible listeria contamination. We have a consumer alert to pass along tonight involving velvet ice cream.
The Utica-based company announced a voluntary recall of its ice cream and sherbet products made on or after March 21st of this year. The company says it's a precaution because the products have the potential to be contaminated with listeria. We are back with a consumer alert for some gourmet ice cream that may have been sold here in Colorado. Tests show it may have been contaminated with listeria.
positive test results for listeria contamination. Officials say they could be contaminated with listeria. Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, a.k.a. Deformer, a.k.a. The Lufkin Liquor.
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