Jeni’s Ice Cream shuts down production again after more listeria detected

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream has voluntarily shut down production because Listeria has been detected in their production facility.

CEO John Lowe posted on the company’s blog today that the Listeria was detected through routine swabbing. Production was halted earlier this week and Lowe reports that the company is investigating where and how the bacteria got into the facility. He says that they do have a theory as to why and are testing that theory, but can’t say when they will resume production of their ice cream.

All of their scoop shops have closed because there is not enough ice cream to stock them.

In April of this year, Jeni’s issued a recall and closed their scoop shops after Listeria was detected in the facility. They resumed production last month, but reiterated that since then, no ice cream served in the shops was contaminated:

Since resuming production in our kitchen on May 13, 2015, wehave been testing every batch of ice cream we have made and holding it until welearned that the testing did not detect any Listeria. So it is with completeconfidence that I can say all of the ice cream that has been served in ourshops since reopening on May 22 has been safe and is 100% Listeria-free.

The company traced the first Listeria finding to a machine in its Columbus kitchen and cleaned and reworked production to prevent future contamination. $2.5 million worth of ice cream had to be destroyed then.

Listeria is a bacterium that causes vomiting, fever and weakness. It can be serious for the elderly and children.