Blue Bell ready to start test run of its ice cream

Blue Bell will begin trial runs of ice cream production at its Alabama plant, but it’s unclear when the company might begin shipping products for sale.

Blue Bell Creameries will begin trial runs of ice cream production at its Alabama plant the week of July 20, health officials confirmed Wednesday, but it’s unclear when the company might begin shipping products for sale.

The trial runs signify that Blue Bell is nearing completion of upgrades at the Alabama facility, which has been closed along with plants in Texas and Oklahoma since April.

Blue Bell notified Alabama officials of the upcoming trials in a phone call Wednesday, said Ron Dawsey, deputy director of environmental services for the Alabama Department of Public Health. The company did not tell the department when sales might resume.

Blue Bell said in a news release Wednesday that production would resume in the next several weeks on a limited basis as the company tries to confirm that new procedures, plant enhancements

“We are very excited about taking these important first steps as part of the process of getting high-quality Blue Bell products back to consumers.” Greg Bridges, vice president of operations for Blue Bell

and employee training have been effective.

“Upon completion of this trial period, Blue Bell will begin building inventory to return to the market,” the release said. “There is no firm date for the test production to begin, and no firm date for when ice cream sales will resume.”

Greg Bridges, vice president of operations for Blue Bell, said, “We are very excited about taking these important first steps as part of the process of getting high-quality Blue Bell products back to consumers.”

Blue Bell recalled all of its products and halted production after ice cream was linked to 10 cases

of listeriosis, a bacterial illness, in four states. Three Kansas patients who were already hospitalized with other conditions died after eating the ice cream.

Oklahoma and Texas health officials said they have not been notified of any plans to resume production. The company signed agreements with the three state health departments outlining steps Blue Bell will take to rid the plants of listeria monocytogenes — the species that causes illness — and to ensure products are safe before they are distributed. The agreements require Blue Bell to notify officials two weeks before distributing ice cream for sale. Because its Texas plant is the largest, it may take the longest to resume production, the company has said.

Blue Bell is redesigning equipment to eliminate places that can harbor the bacteria and addressing problems with condensation — which can drip bacteria into products — that date to at least 2009. It will use a “test-and-hold” program, meaning that every lot coming off the production line will be tested for listeria and held until results come back negative.

Those measures likely will make Blue Bell’s products among the safest in the industry. Even new federal regulations being finalized under a sweeping food safety reform law don’t require such stringent testing measures. The FDA’s optional guidance on preventing listeria in frozen foods — including routine testing for pathogens — has frequently been ignored since it was published in 2008.

For years, Blue Bell found listeria on non-food-contact surfaces in its plants, but didn’t extend testing to the surfaces that touch food or to the ice cream itself, ac- cording to FDA records.

Despite the new safety and sanitation programs, the 108-year-old company in Brenham faces a long recovery. It has laid off or furloughed about three quarters of its workforce and will resume distribution in limited areas, company officials have said. Before the outbreak, it sold in 23 states and was among the top four U.S. ice cream companies, holding its own amid multinational conglomerates that make brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Breyer’s, Blue Bunny and other labels sold nationwide.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked listeriosis cases to the plants in Brenham and Broken Arrow, Okla. A private laboratory in Florida found listeria in ice cream produced at the Sylacauga, Ala., plant after a man got sick and his family found the product in his freezer.

The CDC has not determined a link between that illness and Blue Bell.