Viral ice cream-licking videos a new risk for Blue Bell’s brand
Food safety experts question company’s use of natural seal
Blue Bell Creameries, the Brenham ice cream maker still trying to win back customers it lost during a 2015 listeria outbreak, faces another crisis of consumer confidence as videos of people opening, licking and returning ice cream cartons to store shelves have gone viral.
After police this week arrested a San Antonio teenager and a Louisiana man for tampering with Blue Bell products, the 112year-old company said it is looking to add “additional protection” to its ice cream containers but did not specify further. Currently, the manufacturer flips its cartons upside down and freezes the lids on, creating a natural seal. Other ice cream manufacturers use plastic seals, lid wrappers or screw tops.
“Food safety is our top priority, and we work hard to provide a safe product and maintain the highest level of confidence from our consumers,” Jenny Van Dorf, a Blue Bell spokeswoman, said in an email. “We are always looking
for ways to improve, including looking at methods within our manufacturing process to add additional protection to the carton.”
How Blue Bell responds to these viral videos and potential copycats can either bolster its strong brand reputation or cause a double dip in ice cream sales, local marketing and food safety experts said.
Sales of Blue Bell ice cream plunged after the listeria outbreak and have rebounded modestly in recent years.
The company had an estimated $425.8 million in annual revenue in 2017, according to Statista, still short of an estimated $680 million in 2014, according to PrivCo. Statista and PrivCo provide financial estimates for privately owned companies.
“I cannot imagine how these (ice cream licking) videos would not affect buying decisions and consumer confidence during the middle of ice cream season,” said Utpal Dholakia, a Rice University business and marketing professor. “I know the chances of a tampered carton are very small — virtually nonexistent — but because it’s top of mind, you can’t help but be risk averse. This is a huge problem for the Blue Bell brand.”
Requirements vary
Blue Bell is not the first consumer products manufacturer forced to deal with product tampering, called “product harm crisis” in the food industry.
Johnson & Johnson was widely praised for its response when several bottles of Tylenol were found laced with potassium cyanide during the 1980s. The deaths of seven people from the tainted Tylenol led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter drugs and the passage of federal anti-tampering laws.
Tampering with a consumer product can be punished by prison terms of from two to 20 years and up to $10,000 in fines.
Texas food manufacturers are not required by state law to use tamper-resistant or tamper-evident packaging, which would make it harder to open the product or more noticeable that a product has been tampered with. State food regulators primarily focus on preventing contamination during production and packaging, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman with the Department of State Health Services.
“Our best advice for consumers is to throw out or return any food that appears to have been tampered with,” Van Deusen said in an email. “People should use their experience and best judgment to look for packaging that may have been opened or food that doesn’t look quite right.”
That can be difficult with Blue Bell packaging, according to Sujata Sirsat, an assistant professor of food safety, microbiology and public health at the University of Houston.
“Typically with ice cream, you see a plastic seal that you have to open to reach the ice cream,” Sirsat said. “That way, it’s very clear if the ice cream has been tampered with. There’s really not a good way to tell with a natural seal.”
Late to the game
Julian Jones, a retired food chemist and product developer with more than 15 years of experience working for ice cream makers such as Nestle, Baskin Robbins and TCBY Yogurt, said he was surprised that Blue Bell had yet to adopt more tamper-resistant and tamper-evident packaging after the 2015 listeria outbreak that sickened at least 13 people, including three who later died after being hospitalized with other illnesses.
Findings by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a private laboratory showed sanitation failures at Blue Bell’s manufacturing facilities in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, and prompted regulators and ice cream makers nationwide to rethink long-held assumptions about cleaning and product testing.
The fallout for Blue Bell included several product recalls, the layoff of a third of the company’s staff, an $850,000 fine and increased scrutiny from the FDA and the Texas Department of Health.
Ice cream cartons, typically made out of a paper product, expand and contract with changes in air temperature and atmospheric pressure.
With a natural seal, there’s the potential for ice cream to become exposed to dirt and bacteria, Jones said.
“Responsible manufacturers always use either an internal seal or a plastic wrap band to secure the integrity of the ice cream,” he said. “The lack of a (plastic) seal on (Blue Bell’s) current products is a function of corporate cheapness and a continuing disregard for consumer safety, which continues to permeate their corporate environment.”
‘Quality costs’
Blue Bell did not respond to a request for comment on Jones’ remarks, but earlier said “any attempt at opening the product should be noticeable” to consumers.
The company, in response to the first viral ice cream licking video, said it removed all of its Tin Roof ice cream from a Lufkin Walmart where a San Antonio teenager was seen opening and licking the ice cream.
A potential new packaging system at Blue Bell would likely be costly and take months to implement, and could raise the cost of its ice cream for consumers, experts said.
Jones said the company faces a tough decision: Does it invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade its packaging, or risk losing business as it waits for the social media videos to blow over?
“Quality costs. That’s a fact of life,” Jones said. “Blue Bell has to accept responsibility that their containers are not hermetically sealed, and there’s no way to tell that their product has been tampered with.”