CDC: Florida Ice Cream Company Linked to Deadly Outbreak of Listeria Bacteria

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on April 23, 2020. Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that a Florida-based creamery’s ice cream is linked to a deadly Listeria monocytogenes bacterial outbreak.

In a statement on Saturday, the agency said that “consumers who have Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream at home should throw away any remaining product,” noting that Big Olaf Creamery’s products are only sold in Florida. The Epoch Times has contacted the company for comment.

Big Olaf Creamery products are sold in Florida to shops, fairs, supermarkets, restaurants, and other places. The ice cream is made near Sarasota’s Amish Village of PineCraft.

According to Big Olaf’s website, “The ice cream is made at a small creamery in Sarasota’s Amish village of Pinecraft. Every tub of Big Olaf Ice Cream is hand mixed with the finest ingredients and is then churned in batch freezers by local Amish Craftsmen.”

The CDC says the company is now voluntarily contacting “retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products until further notice,” according to its statement. “Clean any areas, containers, and serving utensils that may have touched Big Olaf ice cream products.”

The CDC previously said that 23 illnesses and one death have been linked to the outbreak.

Listeria kills about 260 Americans each year, according to the CDC’s figures. That’s out of about 1,600 people who are infected annually.

Pregnant women, children under the age of 5, elderly people, and those with compromised immune systems are at the most risk of developing serious complications from bacterial infection. Listeria can also cause stillbirths and miscarriages, according to the CDC.

Those symptoms include fever, muscle aches, nausea, and diarrhea. Listeria can be treated with antibiotics.

Listeria symptoms usually start one to four weeks after eating contaminated food, but can start as soon as the same day.

“The infection can be passed to unborn babies, causing miscarriage, stillbirths and premature labor,” Sarasota Memorial Health Care System spokesperson Kim Savage told the Bradenton Herald.

The first cases occurred in January of this year, but have continued through June when two people got sick, CDC officials said.

A woman who lives near Big Olaf Creamery said she was surprised to hear the CDC’s statement.

“I haven’t heard anything in this village anything from our friends, people we know here,” Charity Lapp told WFLA.

Other details about the outbreak have not been provided.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.