A federal court in Texas has ordered Blue Bell Creameries to pay $17.25 million in criminal penalties stemming from a Listeria outbreak that ended in 2015 with 10 illnesses and three deaths. It is the largest-ever criminal penalty following a conviction in a food safety case. In May 2020, Blue Bell pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of distributing adulterated ice cream products.
“American consumers must be able to trust that the foods they purchase are safe to eat,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a statement. “The sentence imposed today sends a clear message to food manufacturers that the Department of Justice will take appropriate actions when contaminated food products endanger consumers.”
Blue Bell Listeria Outbreak
Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can cause severe illness and death. Symptoms of an infection include fever, headache, muscle aches, stiff neck and gastrointestinal symptoms. Among pregnant women, Listeria infections can cause stillbirth and miscarriage.
In February 2015, state health officials in Texas notified Blue Bell that samples of two ice cream products at the company’s Brenham, Texas plant had tested positive for Listeria. Rather than issue a recall or make a public statement about the potential contamination of its products, the company instructed its delivery route drivers to remove the remaining stock of the two products from store shelves, according to court documents.
Two weeks later, state health officials notified the company that a third product sample from the Brenham facility had tested positive. Again, the company chose not to issue a recall or make any formal announcement about the positive test results.
Using genetic testing, health officials were able to identify the genetic “fingerprint” of the Listeria strain in the outbreak and upload it to a national database in March 2015 where it was closely matched to five patients at a Kansas hospital who all contracted Listeria during their stays. On March 13, 2015, Blue Bell, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) all issued public recall information.
Further tests confirmed Listeria in a Blue Bell product made at a Blue Bell facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. That led to a second recall announcement on March 23, 2015. One month later, Blur Bell announced that it would temporarily close all of its plants to clean and update them.
The Trial Attorneys who prosecuted this case were Patrick Hearn and Matt Lash of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch with assistance from Shannon Singleton and Michael Varrone of the FDA’s Office of Chief Counsel. The FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations and the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service conducted the criminal investigation.