Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has halted production and will temporarily close its shops, after listeria was found once again in its production facility.
The ice cream company said it stopped production earlier this week and began investigating where the listeria came from and how it re-entered the facility.
Jeni’s CEO John Lowe said the company has a theory that is being tested, but it’s not clear when production will resume.
“Since resuming production in our kitchen on May 13, 2015, we have been testing every batch of ice cream we have made and holding it until we learned that the testing did not detect any Listeria,” Lowe said in a statement. “So it is with complete confidence that I can say all of the ice cream that has been served in our shops since reopening on May 22 has been safe and is 100% Listeria-free.”
The company said it plans to temporarily close its shops “because we don’t have enough ice cream to keep them stocked.” It’s not clear when stores will reopen.
“While we would most certainly prefer that Listeria never enter our facility, we do take solace in the fact that our protocols and testing have worked: we found the Listeria before it got into ice cream we served,” Lowe said.
Jeni’s closed all stores and recalled all retail products in April after listeria was discovered in some pints and later in the factory. The company later said the source of the listeria was traced to a spout on its pint-filling machine at the Ohio production facility.
U.S. & World
The ice cream shops reopened Memorial Day weekend with their signature “Salty Caramel” ice cream and other flavors, but some of the usual flavors weren’t immediately available as the ice cream makers had to start from scratch.
