Blue Bell ice cream recall now includes half-gallons, pints

BRENHAM, Texas, April 7 (UPI) -- Blue Bell Creameries on Tuesday expanded a recall of items produced at its Oklahoma plant after more ice cream tested positive for listeria.

The Brenham, Texas, company expanded its existing recall after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said pints of banana pudding ice cream produced at its Broken Arrow, Okla., facility tested positive for the bacteria.

Recalls first began in March after FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigations linked the company's ice cream novelty products to five listeria illnesses at a Kansas hospital. Three of the patients died.

The company issued a secondary recall later that month after 3-ounce single-serve, institutional/food service ice cream cups in chocolate tested positive for listeria.

Blue Bell has since shut down production at the Oklahoma facility and has voluntarily removed from store shelves all items produced at the plant.

On Tuesday, the company said all products with a code date ending in O, P, Q, R, S or T on the bottom of the carton are included in the voluntarily recall. This includes pints of banana pudding, butter crunch, mint chocolate chip, cookies 'n cream, homemade vanilla, Dutch chocolate, moo-llennium crunch and rainbow sherbet; quarts of orange and mixed berry sherbet; 3-ounce single-serve, institutional/food service ice cream cups in rainbow sherbet; and half-gallons of homemade vanilla, pistachio almond and light homemade vanilla flavors.

The previous recall list includes: Chocolate Chip Country Cookie Sandwiches, Great Divide Bars, Sour Pop Green Apple Bar, Cotton Candy Bar, Vanilla Stick Slices, Almond Bars, six-pack Cotton Candy Bars, six-pack Sour Pop Green Apple Bars, 12-pack No Sugar Added Mooo Bars, and 3-ounce single-serve, institutional/food service ice cream cups in chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, all with tab lids.