Think twice about that Blue Bell ice cream....

[ttt]

You have to also go to the link where Blue Bell explains why they didn't test their products after listeria was first discovered at their facility. Literally, their answer is "well, we weren't required to." So, since the government didn't stop us from poisoning people, we just did it. That *definitely* makes me want to go out and buy some of their new batches....

www.dallasnews.com/business/restaurants-hotels/20150913-former-blue-bell-workers-describe-dirty-unsafe-conditions-at-brenham-ice-cream-plant.ece


Benjamin Ofori sometimes watched a mush of strawberries and pecans flow into an ice cream tank even after his production line at Blue Bell had been scrubbed.

Low water pressure and temperature hampered Sabien Colvin’s cleanup efforts at the plant.

Another employee saw a steady drip, day after day, from a dirty air vent onto Fudge Bombstiks.

They say they all complained to supervisors.

In interviews with the Houston Chronicle, more than a dozen former employees of Blue Bell’s flagship Brenham plant described a company fighting to keep up with its growing customer base while sanitation and safety slipped. Cleanup workers regularly ran out of hot water, making machinery susceptible to pathogens and allergens. Reused packaging brought grime into the factory. Equipment went without safeguards for years.

The 14 employees have a combined 213 years of experience on the production lines. Their accounts are bolstered by the limited information reported by the Food and Drug Administration. They’re also backed by an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation that blasted the company for failing to protect workers.

Blue Bell officials would not agree to an interview to discuss the ex-employees’ assessments of their operation. Spokesman Joe Robertson offered a one-paragraph response.

“We are a family at Blue Bell and we have always valued all of our employees and want them to feel safe and enjoy working here,” he said via email. “Our employees are our company’s greatest asset and many have spent their entire careers with us. Workplace safety, sanitation, and employee training remain our highest priorities as we continuously work to improve.”

Since 2010, tainted Blue Bell products have sickened at least 13 people, including three who died after being hospitalized with other illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Findings by the FDA and a private laboratory showed sanitation failures at Brenham extended to plants in Oklahoma and Alabama.

Edwin Rogers, a former vehicle operator, started at Blue Bell in 2002 and was laid off in May.
 

During his tenure, the company added 26 sales and distribution branches in 10 states. In just 13 years, it roughly doubled the reach it had attained in the previous 95, becoming the No. 1 brand in U.S. ice cream sales, based on figures from Euromonitor.

Paul Kruse took over the family business in 2004 and steered it through the explosive growth before announcing layoffs in May.

Blue Bell shut down production and destroyed 8 million pounds of ice cream before embarking on a costly, companywide revamp of equipment and procedures.

First of recalls

Increasing demand led to extraordinary pressures on production. One machine in Brenham — nicknamed Gram — was running virtually 24-7, employees said. That made it hard to clean.

“It was run, run, run,” said one worker, who understood that the plant had to keep churning.

Gram, named for a company that makes ice cream equipment, produced items such as the Country Cookie sandwich and Great Divide Bar. On Jan. 1, according to government records, it made a batch of Great Divide Bars that later tested positive for listeria monocytogenes, the species that makes people sick. On Jan. 20 and 29, it produced tainted batches of Country Cookies.

On Feb. 13, health officials alerted Blue Bell that they had discovered the pathogen in random samples. On Feb. 19 and 21, Blue Bell’s own tests discovered L. monocytogenes in drains connected to the freezer on the Gram line. But the company did not change its practices, which had thus far failed to eliminate the bacteria, FDA records show.

On March 9, Blue Bell learned of a potential link between Kansas hospital illnesses and individually packaged ice cream, produced on Gram. On March 10, it stopped using the machine.
 

Three days later, it issued the first in a line of recalls: everything made on Gram. It later shut down all production on the same floor. Later recalls extended to all plants, as tests isolated listeria on other surfaces and in other products.

Gram was so contaminated that, in its May 22 response to FDA findings, Blue Bell said it would stop using the machine permanently.

Hot-water shortage

When Ofori’s job operating his half-gallon production line was done each day, he cleaned it, just as dozens of others did during the part of the shift known as washup.

In the industry, cleaning means removing all food debris and residue before the sanitizing step, which kills pathogens.

A critical part of Ofori’s work involved cleaning a 200-gallon liquid ice cream mix tank with water and Conquest, a caustic detergent widely used in dairy plants. Conquest instructions call for using water between 150 and 165 degrees, more than hot enough to scald. But throughout his 2009-2012 tenure, Ofori said, there were times the water he used was cool enough to immerse his hand.

There was one hot water source for washup, Ofori and the other employees said, and the heat went to whoever started cleaning first.

“If it ran out, it ran out,” he said.
 

He recalled seeing parts that still had an oily sheen of butterfat being placed back on machines. They would be sanitized later by a graveyard crew, but any bacteria lurking in the line had a shield.

“Butterfat acts as a protective agent for the organisms,” said Nial Yager, a dairy sanitation expert at Washington State University. “If you don’t get the water hot enough to get the butterfat off, it’s not going to work.”

Twelve employees said they and others complained repeatedly about water temperature and low pressure over the last 10 to 15 years.

Around 2013, the company made changes to the water system in Brenham, but problems persisted, employees said.

Some said that if their lines processed all of their mix early, supervisors would instruct them to add additional mix and produce more, even if it delayed washup.

Workers with the longest tenures said rushing through washup had been a problem for a decade or more. Following the outbreak, the company instituted an eight-hour washup routine. It would not answer questions about its procedures.

Most of the employees interviewed by the Chronicle were granted anonymity, because they are still looking for other jobs or have friends or family working in the plant.

Reused cardboard

Another kind of water troubled employees: condensation, dripping from pipes and dirty air vents. In an area known as Vitaline, named for a brand of machine that produces Blue Bell’s novelties on sticks, three workers watched water drip onto the products.

FDA reports cited instances of condensation dripping into finished ice cream during inspections in 2009 and 2015, but investigators did not discover the breadth of the problem.

“Every time we had an inspection coming, they would say ‘blow on the vent, dry it off,’” one employee said of supervisors. “Once the inspection came, everything then went back to normal.”

In one area where employees complained to supervisors and maintenance personnel, they were given a ladder and told to periodically wipe off a wet vent, which was impractical because it dripped at least once a minute, the workers said.

“It was all day, every day,” one worker said, until the plant shut down in April.

Vitaline was a source of complaints even from employees in other areas. An expansion that installed a mezzanine above Vitaline stifled the air there, they said, building up even more humidity, which drifted to other parts of the plant, leading to more condensation.
 

Employees were told there was no solution other than moving the ceiling, “so you just basically have to deal with this problem.”

Employees also had to deal with reused cardboard sleeves. Line workers placed tubs of ice cream into the oblong sleeves, which could then be stacked on pallets and delivered to stores. The cardboard would pick up dirt and debris and carry that back into production areas.

Eleven employees said they were told to throw away damaged or dirty sleeves. But in practice, they were often used until they wore out, even if slimed with ice cream or soaked in condensation.

Blue Bell has said it will discontinue the reuse of cardboard packing sleeves.

The worst grime Ofori witnessed was inside his own machine.

After all parts on the ice cream line had been cleaned and replaced, he ran a final rinse. Occasionally, the mealy goo of ground-up “inclusions” like pecans and strawberries would flow back into the tank, and he would have to clean again. Ofori would see the inclusions even on days when his line produced plain vanilla.

“Bells and whistles and flashing alarms should go off right here,” Yager said. “If you are getting chunks of inclusions recirculating after the system has been 'cleaned,' you have failed.”

“More than listeria, there is a danger of serious allergic reaction from this,” he said.

Ofori, like other employees, said raising concerns about such failures generated little but admonitions to mind his own business.

Colvin started working part-time at Blue Bell in 2008, between seasons playing for the Brenham High School basketball team. He was 16.

He began on the fruit feeder, a job that requires opening a lid and dumping in the inclusions. An auger at the bottom of a vat feeds the food into a rotor with blunt paddles that push the inclusions into the ice cream.

Occasionally, the feeder in Area 2 would jam. Sensors set off an alarm and shut down the machine. It could take 45 minutes to isolate the problem and get running again, Ofori said.

But the sensors began triggering false alarms, resulting in repeated stoppages, he said. OSHA investigators found that the sensors had been bypassed. This created another problem: The feeder would spontaneously turn on.

“We communicated it to the cleanup supervisor that this was going to happen again,” Ofori said. “He just said, 'Be careful.'”

By 19, Colvin was trained to break down machines for cleaning. He was earning money for college, on his way toward a public health degree.

On Aug. 11, 2011, Colvin turned off the fruit feeder and inserted his left hand to clear debris. Then it kicked on.

The rotor paddles don't move fast, Ofori said, but spin with incredible torque.

Colvin thought it had just nipped the tip of one finger, but when he pulled his hand out, he saw bone on three fingers.

They couldn’t be reattached. Colvin had surgery and spent months in physical therapy.

Colvin couldn’t sue Blue Bell because Texas companies covered by workers’ compensation are immune from civil liability for workplace injuries unless gross negligence causes a death.

He got a phone call to the hospital from a manager and $231 a week in workers' comp for four months. Then he returned to Blue Bell, figuring it was easier to keep working there until he finished at community college. They gave him a job away from the production area.

Related: Blue Bell explains why it didn’t test its ice cream after first discovering Listeria

Ofori said Colvin had been trained not to put his hand in the feeder, but Colvin said he was told to turn off the machine, wash out the debris and then manually check for food particles. Both said the company unfairly blamed Colvin for the accident. Blue Bell had no comment about the incident.

OSHA found that the company had failed Colvin and fined Blue Bell $27,000, negotiated down to $20,000. The company instituted safeguards.

OSHA said Blue Bell didn't put guards on moving machine parts and had virtually no lockout-tagout program. On the books since 1989, federal law requires employers to supply locks and tags to cut off power to equipment during maintenance and cleaning.

During an interview with OSHA investigators, production manager Erich Glenewinkel said “he thought that some of the machines had written lockout-tagout procedures, but he'd have to go back and look,” a report states.

Glenewinkel didn't even know the machines were supposed to have written procedures, the investigator wrote. Corporate Risk Manager Howard Zuch also told inspectors that “he couldn't say” if he had heard of the requirement.

Only 54 of about 200 production employees were trained on lockout-tagout, OSHA reported. But employees said they couldn't put it to use because they didn't have enough locks or tags. The only safety meeting everyone attended was a few hours each December, they said.

Employees said they wouldn’t have those safeguards today had Colvin’s parents not complained, triggering the investigation.

There had been a series of accidents at the plant since 2005, according to employees who say they know the injured. A woman lost half of her little finger when it was caught in a chain on a conveyor. The rest of the finger was surgically removed. A man lost the tip of his little finger reaching for dropped product near an unguarded chain below a Vitaline machine. A woman's leg was severely gouged in another moving parts accident.

Nowhere to go

For most of its 108 years, Blue Bell was known for inspiring loyalty in its employees. Vernice Neumann, who lost half a fingertip in a half-gallon lidding machine 30 years ago, harbored no ill will toward Howard and Ed Kruse, the brothers who piloted the company in its second generation. It was her first and only job until she died, said her son, Jay Neumann.

Related: Food safety experts question initial Blue Bell listeria response

Those who watched conditions decline before getting pink slips after 20- and 30-year careers described a deep sense of loss and powerlessness. Some still made less than $16.48, the national median wage for dairy production jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was a check-to-check lifestyle. But it still was the best-paying blue-collar employer in Washington County, employees said.

“You got a family. You have to weigh your situation,” one worker said. “Is it worth me going in and trying to make them do something different and then I lose my job? ... There was a lot I thought wasn't right, but I didn't know nobody I could go to. They own the whole town.”

The Kruse name is on streets and buildings, and the Blue Bell name is ubiquitous. The company has donated generously to, it seems, every cause. They also offer employees a 401(k) and a company-paid pension. Last year, everyone received a 16 percent bonus, with 3 percent going into a stock ownership plan.

Employees said supervisors and the company would help with family emergencies and financial binds.

“I think it hurts me so badly because they've always said we're family, we're going to take care of each other,” one worker said. “We pray that Blue Bell does make it, because the community needs it.”

[meshaliuknits]

Oh COME ON!

This is lazy, cheap, disgusting, and unsafe. And they KNEW it was wrong because they cleaned before inspections. I hope OSHA & the FDA nail them to a wall.

[downtoearth]

Screw TX law!

"...couldn't sue Bell because Texas companies covered by workers’ compensation are immune from civil liability for workplace injuries unless gross negligence causes a death.

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/477290/twice-blue-bell-ice-cream#ixzz3lmLOalkk

[ttt]

This is why we need government regulations, people. I would like to direct conservatives to this right here and would like to hear how the free market would prevent things like this from happening when companies clearly will only do the bare minimum required by law, public health and safety be damned.

bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/blue-bell-explains-why-it-didnt-test-its-ice-cream-after-first-discovering-listeria.html/

The News: When you learned of the existence of Listeria in your plant, apparently as far back as in 2013, why didn’t the company move then to test its food supply to see if the ice cream was contaminated?

Blue Bell: It’s important to note that the listeria found in 2013 through Blue Bell’s internal testing and referenced in the most recent FDA report was not found in ice cream, but was found on non-food surfaces — surfaces that do not come in direct contact with the ice cream product.

Several swab tests did show the presence of Listeria on non-food surfaces in Blue Bell’s Broken Arrow plant in 2013. As is standard procedure for any such positive results, the company would immediately clean the surfaces and swab until the tests were negative.

The News: Why didn’t you report the findings to the FDA or the state health department?

Blue Bell: Under FDA and state regulations, companies in our industry were not previously required to report listeria findings. Moving forward, under our recently signed voluntary agreements with the states of Texas and Oklahoma, we will go beyond what FDA and state regulations require and we have agreed to report any findings of Listeria monocytogenes in ingredients or finished products. Moreover, the government will have full access to our routine environmental sampling results for Listeria.

The News If you found out about listeria in some of your products on February 13, 2015, why didn’t you recall those products until March 13, 2015?

Blue Bell: From the moment we found out about a presumptive positive test on February 13, we began working with regulators and immediately retrieved the products in question.

The News: I’m aware that the law did not require you to do so, and that testing can be seen as overkill in some situations. But in hindsight, weren’t the repeated positive test results a red flag that the company should have tested?

Blue Bell: We recognize how important it is to maintain a clean facility, and we are currently conducting a comprehensive reevaluation of all our operations, including our cleaning processes.

[downtoearth]

Oh and gross! I've never had Blue Bell ice cream - phew.

[meshaliuknits]

Come on, dude, the FDA increases expectations all the time. The c in cGMP stands for current. It's a moving target. And I doubt the regulations are written so specifically as to tell you what all needs to be tested for what. If we get stuff like "clean & prove it as appropriate" y'all ain't getting much better. You let your product get hot, you were not acting appropriately.

I've learned from this that I cannot work in food manufacturing because 15yrs in biotech have raised my notion of "clean" too high. I haven't been this pissed off since the McNeil debacle.

[Aquatica]

This is gross and I'm glad Blue Bell is out of my local grocery stores. It's going to take a long time for Blue Bell to try and repair the damage to their reputation, especially with further findings and investigations; but I doubt it will be repairable. Another ice cream company will move in, just like it did here (not complaining, I finally have Tillamook in my city).

The one thing I'm baffled about is the stupidity of "well, we found listeria in our facility but it wasn't in the ice cream". It doesn't take long for something to cross contaminate.

[iammalcolmx]

So basically corporate is telling them "run, run ,run" and no in Plant Management had the balls to say "No!We simply cannot do this legally" , nice. Also WTF@them not having any safeguards in place to prevent that machine from moving again.

[sugarglider]

Wow. Sounds like the exact opposite of how Jeni's handled their listeria issue.

[KateAggie]

Dammit. Can I eat the Cookies and Cream in my freezer, and then change brands?

[ttt]

Sept 15, 2015 8:00:42 GMT -5 KateAggie said:

Dammit. Can I eat the Cookies and Cream in my freezer, and then change brands?

Just wash it down with some antibiotics! Alternatively, copious amounts of alcohol should kill the bacteria, right? 

[ttt]

Sept 15, 2015 8:05:10 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

Sept 14, 2015 23:36:20 GMT -5 ttt said:

This is why we need government regulations, people. I would like to direct conservatives to this right here and would like to hear how the free market would prevent things like this from happening when companies clearly will only do the bare minimum required by law, public health and safety be damned.

to be a devil's advocate:

but do you really think BB is going to survive this? they will go out of business and the free market will have worked.

I don't know if they will. But the problem is, if they do, they will go out of business *after* people have already died. The fear of going out of business after an outbreak isn't enough to stop this from happening in the first place. So how do you keep people safe when market pressure isn't enough? 

[saz]

This makes me both sad and disgusted. I was a huge Blue Bell fan but I just can't see supporting them again after this. And I'm really sad people died in this.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

Sept 15, 2015 1:37:06 GMT -5 sugarglider said:

Wow. Sounds like the exact opposite of how Jeni's handled their listeria issue.

Mmmm Jeni's. I heard they've really moved toward sorbets since the listeria problem. I appreciate their caution. (But I'll still destroy some Almond Brittle at any opportunity.)

[skwcm80]

We used to drive 2 hours to Louisville to pick up Bluebell when I was pregnant with DD, and were very excited when we could get it locally. I still haven't seen it in stores, but it doesn't matter since I won't be buying it. Good thing I like Talenti.

[AJL]

I read this and as a long time Blue Bell fan, I'm over them.

[cap]

That's disgusting.

[tacosforlife]

Sept 15, 2015 8:05:10 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

Sept 14, 2015 23:36:20 GMT -5 ttt said:

This is why we need government regulations, people. I would like to direct conservatives to this right here and would like to hear how the free market would prevent things like this from happening when companies clearly will only do the bare minimum required by law, public health and safety be damned.

to be a devil's advocate:

but do you really think BB is going to survive this? they will go out of business and the free market will have worked.

I do. The governor of Texas made a JOKE about Blue Bell returning to shelves not that long ago on his Facebook page. There were a few comments that called him out on how inappropriate it was to joke about something that caused the death of children, but most of the comments were such enlightened things as "God bless Texas and God bless Blue Bell!"

I also think a lot of people don't know how bad the safety practices were. All I heard my family talk about was anxiously awaiting the return of Blue Bell, not concern that Blue Bell would be unsafe going forward.

I didn't realize the company had expanded so quickly. I used to really love something about the fact that there was such a small area where you could buy Blue Bell. I think there is something to smaller, more regional products instead of everything being nationally marketed. I heard a story on NPR this morning about how craft beer sales are up so much that MillerCoors sales have been down, and the company is closing a plant in North Carolina. It made me think of one of my favorite Wisconsin breweries, New Glarus, which has enough of a cult following to support distributing throughout the Midwest but the owners are adamant that it stay a small operation with Wisconsin-only distribution. There is something admirable about that commitment to quality, IMO, even if it means you can't be the biggest ever.

[2curlydogs]

Thank God for decent WI ice cream.

[EloiseWeenie]

The whole story is appalling. I'm still hung up on the fact that there was only enough hot water for whoever was the 1st to clean. Holeee shit.

[notsocreepylurker]

I have never found Blue Bell ice cream to be that good (blasphemy here in Houston!). To me it tastes like Breyers or Edys. But I attribute that to being from NJ and LOVING Applegate Farms ice cream so much. I've been trying to tell my friends that Blue Bell knew about the listeria issue WAY before people got sick but they don't want to hear it. They just want to eat their Blue Bell again.

[zoegirltx]

Sept 15, 2015 8:00:42 GMT -5 KateAggie said:

Dammit. Can I eat the Cookies and Cream in my freezer, and then change brands?

dITTO- I'm pretending I didn't read this... 
pregnant lady needs her ice cream!

[oliviapope]

I don't get the Blue Bell love. An ad came on the big screen at the Astros game a couple weeks ago and everyone was standing around clapping...meanwhile I'm wishing it was Ben & Jerry's.

I am a traitor to my state lol.

[laurenpetro]

sounds like my lactose intolerance kicked in at just the right time.

also, the #2 place on this list is about 5 minutes from my house. it's the tits:

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/best-ice-creams-in-the-country_55c9099ee4b0923c12bdd465

[CallingAllAngels]

So, does this mean that there will be lots of inexpensive ice cream available? Asking for a friend.

[iammalcolmx]

Making sure people are joking about eating this Ice Cream after reading this.

[josieposy]

Blue Bunny is the best anyway.

[notsocreepylurker]

Sept 15, 2015 9:53:00 GMT -5 josieposy said:

Blue Bunny is the best anyway.

I did enjoy Blue Bunny when I lived in IL.  I sometimes see it here but not near the variety up north.  My fave was a bavarian cream with raspberry.

[josieposy]

Sept 15, 2015 10:31:43 GMT -5 notsocreepylurker said:

Sept 15, 2015 9:53:00 GMT -5 josieposy said:

Blue Bunny is the best anyway.

I did enjoy Blue Bunny when I lived in IL.  I sometimes see it here but not near the variety up north.  My fave was a bavarian cream with raspberry.

some of my family is from the area where it's made, and I had a relative that worked for them. We could never get enough of it.

[jln]

Tillamook forevah.

I'm just sick of the "God Bless Blue Bell" signs.