By JUAN A. LOZANO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — Sep 22, 2016, 11:28 PM ET
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A supplier of cookie dough that Blue Bell Creameries blamed for a possible listeria contamination of some of its ice cream said Thursday that its product tested negative for the pathogen before it was sent to the Texas-based company.
Blue Bell announced Wednesday it was recalling select flavors of ice cream distributed across the South and made at its Sylacauga, Alabama, plant after finding chocolate chip cookie dough from a third-party supplier — Iowa-based Aspen Hills Inc. — that was potentially contaminated with listeria. Blue Bell said Thursday evening in an email it stood by its test results that found listeria in the cookie dough product.
Blue Bell halted sales, issued a voluntarily recall of all its products in April 2015 and shut down its three plants due to bacteria contamination that was linked to 10 listeria cases in four states, including three deaths in Kansas. The company, headquartered in Brenham, about 70 miles outside Houston, resumed selling its products about four months later. Before resuming production, the company said it had implemented new cleaning and sanitizing procedures at its facilities, as well as new testing programs and new employee training.
The iconic ice cream brand is beloved in Texas, where people impatiently awaited its return to store shelves after the recall.
No illnesses have been reported from the latest recall of ice cream distributed in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, Blue Bell said.
Blue Bell said on Thursday in an email to The Associated Press that it found listeria contamination in packages of cookie dough ingredient received from Aspen Hills.
But a statement from Aspen Hills said its cookie dough product tested negative for listeria before it was shipped to Blue Bell and that the "positive listeria results were obtained by Blue Bell only after our product had been in their control for almost two months."
Aspen Hills said that Blue Bell is the only customer that received the cookie dough product included in a separate voluntary recall it issued. Blue Bell has been a customer of Aspen Hills since January.
In a follow-up email Thursday evening, Blue Bell said the boxes of cookie dough ingredient it tested from Aspen Hills were unopened, and testing done both by Blue Bell and an outside lab confirmed the presence of listeria.
Blue Bell also said the Texas Department of State Health Services conducted follow-up tests. Agency spokeswoman Christine Mann confirmed the state tested the cookie dough and found it was positive for listeria.