A Tomales micro creamery last week issued a voluntary recall of three cheeses after the United States Food and Drug Administration said samples showed signs of infection by Lysteria monocytogenes, a bacteria that can cause serious illness in people with weakened immune systems.
Bleating Heart Cheese moved quickly to collect and destroy about 400 pounds of Ewelicious Blue, Fat Bottom Girl and Goldette Tomette after receiving a call from the F.D.A. last Monday afternoon. Most of the 190 cheese wheels suspected to be infected, produced from May to July, were sold and distributed in restaurants and stores throughout the Bay Area. No illnesses have been reported.
“We have notified our distributors, and they have notified all their customers,” said Dave Dalton, who co-owns the company with his wife, Seana Doughty. “We have temporarily suspended cheese production, pending further testing.”
Bleating Heart, which operates on the Thornton Ranch in Tomales, has not yet determined the cost of the recall, which represents about 1.4 percent of the year’s production. It is the company’s first recall since it began making cheese over five years ago. (At the 2014 California State Fair, Fat Bottom Girl took home top honors in the “Semi-Hard Cheese Category.”)
Mr. Dalton said the F.D.A.’s call came as a surprise. Bleating Heart had previously sent samples of the same cheeses to an independent laboratory, and the results came back free of
pathogens.
“We are doing this recall voluntarily out of an abundance of caution,” Mr. Dalton said. “Since we believed that both our cheese and our facility were free of any pathogens, it was quite a shock to learn that the F.D.A. laboratory had found Listeria monocytogenes. We would not have released any cheese into the marketplace if we had any knowledge that it might possibly be contaminated. Bleating Heart Cheese has always, and will continue to be, fully committed to producing safe, high-quality cheese.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Listeria monocytogenes causes a disease called listeriosis, which primarily harms older adults, pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems. Symptoms can appear from anywhere between two days to two months after eating a contaminated product, and they usually manifest as fever and muscle aches. Pregnant women have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths and older adults are susceptible to contracting septicemia and meningitis. The disease can be treated with antibiotics.
The bacteria, which thrives in soil and water sources, travels from animals and plants to processed food products. Generally, cooking raw meat and pasteurizing cheeses kills Listeria monocytogenes, though the bacteria occasionally escapes these treatment processes.
Bleating Heart will collaborate with food safety agencies to run more tests on the recalled cheeses, after which stocks will be destroyed.
Anyone who purchased the cheeses is entitled to a refund from the Bleating Heart. Customers who believe they have eaten the cheeses are strongly encouraged to alert the company by emailing [email protected].