Blue Bell Butter Crunch Ice Cream packaged in a 1/2 Gallon (2 Qts) paperboard cup & lid…
Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 6 November 2019 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Possible foreign material in product.
The record
Every field below is published by the FDA in the openFDA food enforcement database. Check the FDA notice before acting on any recall: this page is a reading of the public record, not a substitute for it.
- Product
- Blue Bell Butter Crunch Ice Cream packaged in a 1/2 Gallon (2 Qts) paperboard cup & lid (4 units per corrugated sleeve, 77 sleeves per pallet).
- Reason for recall
- Possible foreign material in product.
- Recalling firm
- Blue Bell Creameries, L.P.
- Firm location
- Brenham, Texas, United States
- Classification
- Class II
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-0078-2020
- Quantity
- 1,626 units
- Distribution
- Product was shipped to the following states: AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN, & VA.
- Initiated
- 8 October 2019
- Reported by FDA
- 6 November 2019
- Terminated
- 10 April 2020
- Firm notified by
- Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
- Product codes
- Code Date: 082621222, produced 8/26/19 in Sylacauga, AL Best By Date: 8/26/2021
Reading this record
Five things about this record are not in the record itself, and each one changes how it should be read.
- Class II means the FDA judged a remote probability of serious harm, or a probability of temporary or medically reversible harm. The class is assigned by an agency health hazard evaluation under 21 CFR 7.41, not by the firm.
- The firm started this recall itself. Most FDA food recalls are voluntary, and a recall is a food safety plan working rather than failing. The circumstances in which the agency asks for one instead are set out in 21 CFR 7.45.
- This record is the only one the FDA opened for its recall event, so it covers a single product code.
- The recall ran for 6 months, from 8 October 2019 to termination on 10 April 2020. Termination means the agency judged that all reasonable effort had been made, under 21 CFR 7.55, and it says nothing about whether product remained in circulation.
- The distribution pattern names 7 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 4 weeks after the firm began the recall.
- Recalls of ice cream or frozen dessert run a median of 7 months, so this one was about typical for its category. Ice cream and frozen desserts are ready to eat and never cooked again, and freezing preserves Listeria rather than killing it, which is why a positive environmental sample in a frozen dessert plant becomes a recall rather than a corrective action.
Named in the distribution pattern: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. Those pages count recalls by where the RECALLING FIRM sits, which is a different question from where this product went.
What this recall was for
Foreign material
A foreign material recall means something that is not food was found in food: metal, plastic, glass, wood or insect matter, usually shed by equipment during processing.
A preventive controls plan covers foreign material under the clauses below. This is where the control belongs, not a finding against any firm named on this page: a recall record states a reason, and most of these recalls were initiated by the firm itself.
- 21 CFR 117.40
- Equipment and utensils: plant equipment designed and maintained so it cannot contaminate food with lubricants, fuel, metal fragments or contaminated water.
- 21 CFR 117.80(c)
- Manufacturing operations: the measures that protect food from contamination during processing, including the effective ones against metal and other extraneous material.
- 21 CFR 117.150
- Corrective actions: what a facility does when a preventive control was not properly implemented, including identifying and correcting the problem and evaluating the food for safety.
Filed under ice cream and frozen desserts and milk and dairy. A product can sit in more than one.
Other ice cream and frozen desserts recalls for the same reason
These are the closest records in the corpus: the same kind of food, recalled for a hazard this record also names. Unlike the firm’s own records below, they come from different companies, which is what makes them a pattern rather than a history.
Other records from Blue Bell Creameries, L.P.
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event. 293 other records name this firm.
| Reported | Product | Firm | Reason | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-03 | Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream cartons with a Moo-llennium Crunch lid. Packaging contains Moo-llennium crunch. Packaged in half gallon cartons (1.89 L) | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | undeclared almond, walnut, and pecan. | Class II |
| 2018-07-18 | Blue Bell Ice Cream, Brand Homemade Vanilla Flavored, 3 FL OZ (88 mL), Cups, 24 per box, This Unit Not Labeled For Retail Sale | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | Vanilla ice cream not labeled for individual sale was distributed to stores for individual sale. They are therefore missing a nutrition facts panel, an ingredients statement , and they do not declare the presence of the major food allergen milk | Class III |
| 2017-01-18 | BLUE BELL(R) ICE CREAM Blue Monster, 3 Gallons | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | All ice cream products, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookie Two Step ice Cream, Krazy Kookie Dough, and Blue Monster, containing cookie dough supplied by Aspen Hills, Inc., due to the potential for them to contain Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2017-01-18 | BLUE BELL(R) ICE CREAM Cookie Two Step, Half Gallon and Pint sizes | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | All ice cream products, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookie Two Step ice Cream, Krazy Kookie Dough, and Blue Monster, containing cookie dough supplied by Aspen Hills, Inc., due to the potential for them to contain Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2017-01-18 | BLUE BELL(R) ICE CREAM Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Half Gallon, Pint, and 3 Gallon sizes. | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | All ice cream products, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookie Two Step ice Cream, Krazy Kookie Dough, and Blue Monster, containing cookie dough supplied by Aspen Hills, Inc., due to the potential for them to contain Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2017-01-18 | BLUE BELL(R) ICE CREAM Krazy Kookie Dough, 3 Gallons | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | All ice cream products, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookie Two Step ice Cream, Krazy Kookie Dough, and Blue Monster, containing cookie dough supplied by Aspen Hills, Inc., due to the potential for them to contain Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2016-06-08 | BLUE BELL ICE CREAM Rocky Road pint | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | Product may have been mispackaged and contain undeclared wheat and soy. | Class II |
| 2015-07-01 | Blue Bell Ice Cream Blueberry Cheesecake Still a 1/2 Gal (2 QTS) | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | Five patients who were treated in a single hospital in Kansas were infected with one of four rare strains of Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2015-07-01 | Blue Bell Ice Cream Chocolate Chip 3 Gallon | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | Five patients who were treated in a single hospital in Kansas were infected with one of four rare strains of Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
| 2015-07-01 | DZ Lime Fruit Bar - Single Serve Snack; 6 Pak Lime Fruit Bars | Blue Bell Creameries, L.P. | Five patients who were treated in a single hospital in Kansas were infected with one of four rare strains of Listeria monocytogenes. | Class I |
All 294 records for Blue Bell Creameries, L.P.
All 2019 recalls · All FDA food recall data
21 CFR 117.40 is the clause behind this recall, and it is one somebody has to produce evidence for at their next audit. Krolda maps supplier documents to the clause they satisfy in FSSC 22000, IFS Food and 21 CFR 117, and routes the corrective action when the evidence is missing.
Early accessRecall records come from the openFDA food enforcement API, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the public domain. Krolda adds the hazard classification and the clause mapping; neither is an FDA determination. Always check the FDA notice before acting on a recall.