Blue Bell using ice cream for new training

Starting Monday, Blue Bell Ice Cream will be churning out frozen treats at their production plants, but consumers still won’t be able to have any.

In the latest development in the ongoing listeria outbreak affecting the Brenham-based icon, any ice cream produced next week at their plants will only be used for testing and gathering baseline data, company officials said Thursday.

None of the ice cream will be sold to the public.

On Monday, Blue Bell announced a complete recall of all of its products after its ice cream was linked to 10 listeria illnesses in four states.

Company officials on Thursday also announced a new training regimen for Blue Bell workers and an intensive cleaning program at the company’s four production plants in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama.

“After a thorough review of operations and discussions with an expert microbiologist, it was decided this cleaning and training program will greatly benefit Blue Bell as it moves forward,” the company said in a statement.

In addition to training Blue Bell staffers in what they are calling “highly aggressive cleaning techniques,” future developments at the company will include design changes in their equipment and enhancing their preventative maintenance program.

“This is a paradigm shifting event at Blue Bell and we want to put in place new systems to drive continuous improvement,” company president Paul Kruse said in a statement.

Blue Bell pulled all of its products off the market this week because they have the potential to be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes, an organism that can cause sometimes fatal infections in the very young, elderly people or those with weakened immune systems.

The ice cream may have been a contributing factor in the deaths of three hospital patients in Kansas, officials said.

Even normally healthy people can suffer shortterm problems like high fever along with severe headaches and nausea if they are infected with the listeria organism.

Blue Bell officials insist the vast majority of their products are not contaminated, only that they have the potential to be.

The company said it will eventually reintroduce ice cream under a “test and hold” program, allowing items to leave the plants only after they have been tested. The program will continue indefinitely, Blue Bell officials said.

“We’ve always worked to make the very highest quality ice cream,” Kruse said.