Company recalls cookie dough found in ice cream due to listeria threat

An Iowa company is recalling the cookie dough it sold to Blue Bell Creameries and other food companies because it may be contaminated with listeria bacteria.

Dough-maker Aspen Hills notified customers about the recall on Sunday, but it wasn't immediately clear whether any of this cookie dough had reached consumers because the Garner, Iowa, based company doesn't sell directly to consumers. Aspen Hills did not say the companies or states where the dough was sold.

In response, Blue Bell Ice Cream is voluntarily recalling all products that were made with the cookie dough ingredient.

Read the full Blue Bell statement.

Aspen Hills' cookie dough was implicated in last month's Blue Bell recall because the Texas-based ice cream-maker said its tests confirmed the presence of listeria in the product.

Aspen Hills spokesman Jon Austin said the cookie dough was voluntarily recalled because the company found lapses in its food safety system - such as inadequate documentation and failure to wear proper uniforms - that could have allowed the product to become contaminated.

"Any one of these issues is a matter we would take seriously, but collectively they represent to us an unacceptable lapse in the standards our customers - and we - expect," Austin said.

The company discovered the problems after reviewing its practices after the recall announced last month.

Austin said no illnesses have been linked to the company's products and none of the cookie dough it is recalling this week tested positive for listeria.

The recall includes 22,000 cases of cookie dough made between July 15 and September 30.

Austin said the dough was sold to about 27 food manufacturers, and those companies will determine whether additional products that used the cookie dough as an ingredient should be recalled.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that listeria causes roughly 1,600 illnesses and 260 deaths ever year in the United States.

Listeria can cause serious, sometimes fatal infections in young children and frail or elderly people, as well as those with weakened immune systems. Healthy people may suffer short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, but the infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among expectant mothers.