Jeni's to Digest 265 Tons of Ice Cream....Into Electricity and Manure
After recalling all its frozen products last week, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams announced that it would destroy 265 tons of ice cream.
The company in a statement said that 15 semi-truck loads or 300 pallets of ice cream will be digested in an anaerobic digester that will convert dairy into electricity and natural soil fertilizer. The recall is expected to cost the company $ 2.5 million.
"For the record, the lot number of the product that began this inquiry is 5-025-201 and is stamped on the bottom of the containers. The product is a pint of Dark Chocolate ice cream. We have been reluctant to release the specific flavor and batch number of the pint only because we did not want people to wrongly assume Listeria is not present in other flavors and batches," the company explained.
"We have since tested a number of pints and buckets. While all of our buckets and the vast majority of pints tested negative, Listeria was found in a pint of The Buckeye State ice cream (5-082-265), and Listeria might be present in other flavors as well," it further said.
The company announced recall of its products including ice creams, frozen yogurts, sorbets, and ice cream sandwiches after a randomly selected sample tested by Nebraska Department of Agriculture showed presence of Listeria Monocytogenes bacteria, which can causes serious and sometimes fatal infection in children, aged and immune-compromised people.
The company said in its latest statement that it would continue serving ice cream only after establishing the source of infection and clearing its production line. It did not specify how long that could take.
