Jeni’s CEO: Listeria ‘Smoking Gun’ was Spout of One Production Machine

In an update posted Wednesday from John Lowe, CEO of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, he said that swab testing had found Listeria on the spout of one machine in the company’s production kitchen in Columbus, OH.

“We can now say that we believe we located the smoking gun,” he said, adding that, “It is a machine we use to fill a portion of our pints. The machine was not used to fill buckets that we scoop from in our shops, but we are nonetheless continuing with our plan to dispose of all of those buckets.”

Jeni’s announced a full product recall and temporary shutdown of all its scoop shops on April 23 after Listeria was found in a pint of dark chocolate ice cream tested in Nebraska and then was found later in a pint of a different flavor. The company is continuing to institute enhanced testing and cleaning procedures to fix the problem.

“We’ll never be 100% certain how Listeria got onto the machine. Our job now is to rework our production kitchen into a facility that provides the best defenses against any contamination, and we have enlisted some of the world’s top food safety experts to help in that effort,” Lowe said.

In a previous April 28 update, Lowe said that Jeni’s has destroyed 265 tons of ice cream at a cost to the company of more than $2.5 million. His May 6 update said that a conservative estimate of how much new investment it would take to transform the production kitchen is $200,000 and was expected to increase.

“We will spend whatever it takes,” Lowe said.

The rest of the May 6 update describes a new layout for the Columbus production facility to limit cross-contamination and enhance safety and notes that all fresh fruits and vegetables to be added to Jeni’s products would now be processed at a separate location.

“Our entire kitchen team is at our headquarters this week receiving training on improved standard operating and sanitation procedures that go above and beyond the safety requirements of the FDA and Ohio Department of Agriculture,” Lowe said.

“While our primary focus will be on a system for the prevention of contamination, we’ll also be implementing a test-and-hold program, in which all batches of finished product will be tested for bacteria before shipping,” he added.

Jeni’s hopes to resume ice cream production in “the very near future,” Lowe said. In the meanwhile, he said a local farmer had offered full-time work to Jeni’s employees displaced while the kitchen and scoop shops are closed.

from Food Safety News » Food Recalls http://ift.tt/1KNmRoF