Blue Bell Expands Cookie Dough Ice Cream Recall

Blue Bell Ice Cream has expanded its recall of its cookie dough ice cream, recalling all of its products made with a cookie dough ingredient due to the potential for the product to contain a bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, the company announced in a message posted Monday by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

The company says it used a third-party, Aspen Hills, Inc., that supplied the cookie dough ingredient for Blue Bell Ice Cream. The ingredient could contain Listeria monocytogene, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, the company noted. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women, according to the company.

No illnesses have been reported to date, the company reported. Blue Bell said it initiated the expanded recall after Aspen Hills provided additional information on affected cookie dough lots. Although their products in the marketplace have passed their "test and hold" program, which requires that finished product samples from a batch test negative for Listeriamonocytogenes before the batch can be released, Blue Bell is initiating the recall out of an abundance of caution, the company announced.

This recall includes the following products, sold in stores and to food service accounts in half gallons and pints:

• Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
• Blue Bell Cookie Two Step
• Blue Bell Blue Monster
• Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Cookie
• Blue Bell Krazy Kookie Dough

These products were produced from Feb. 2, 2016 through Sept. 7, 2016, the company said. The consumer and food service products produced with the cookie dough pieces were distributed in the following states Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Consumers should not eat the recalled products and are encouraged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund, according to Blue Bell.

"We continue to work closely with our regulatory agencies, and we remain committed to ensuring we are producing safe products for our consumers to enjoy," the company said in its statement.

For more information, consumers with questions may call 979-836-7977, Monday – Friday 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. CST. This is an expansion of the original recall posted here: Link to Blue Bell Recall

PHOTO of Blue Bell ice cream product courtesy of company

See more photos below of product, also courtesy of company: