2013 – KID ALWAYS EATS VANILLA & CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM TOGETHER. HE DOES NOT LIKE IT ANY OTHER WAY!!
Blue Bell Ice Cream Returns to Store Shelves in Select Cities.
Four months after announcing a sweeping U.S. recall, ice-cream maker Blue Bell Creameries LP is embarking on one of the food industry’s more ambitious recovery attempts.
The Texas company’s ice-cream cartons began reappearing in grocery stores in several cities on Monday, a major step after Blue Bell yanked all of its products following a deadly listeria outbreak and confronted a financial crisis that nearly put it out of business.
Blue Bell faces an arduous effort to regain the trust of large retailers and persuade consumers its products are safe, branding consultants say. The 108-year-old company—until April the third-largest U.S. ice-cream maker by sales behind Nestlé SA, the maker of Edy’s, and Unilever PLC, which makes Ben & Jerry’s—is expected to draw significant support from its many fans in Texas, but one of its main hurdles will be to win over consumers outside its home state and other strongholds in the southern U.S., they say.
“They’ve got a challenging road ahead,” said Mary Zalla, a president with branding agency Landor Associates. Recouping space in some retailers’ freezer cases will be “an uphill battle.”
Blue Bell’s initial plans call for re-entering 15 of the 23 states where it sold ice cream before the recall. The closely held company on Monday resumed distribution in several cities in Texas—including Houston, Austin and its hometown of Brenham—and Alabama, where its Sylacauga plant has restarted production.
The ice-cream maker is using social media to engage consumers for the return of its frozen desserts. Last week, it revealed one ice-cream flavor a day that would soon return to store shelves. On Monday, it posted to an early morning video of its trucks departing for ice-cream deliveries.
The recovery effort comes after Blue Bell in late April voluntarily recalled all of its products after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked its ice cream to a listeria outbreak that resulted in three deaths at a Kansas hospital and illnesses in Kansas and Texas. Blue Bell nearly ran out of money as it raced to clean up its plants and resume production. In July, it secured a loan from Texas billionaire Sid Bass for up to $125 million to keep it afloat.
Some food companies have failed to come back from major recalls—especially firms with limited financial resources and whose products were linked to large numbers of deaths or illnesses. Others were able to rebound because they had already built strong consumer loyalty to their brands and moved quickly to admit mistakes and publicly announce efforts to fix them, according to crisis-communications consultants.
In 1996, juice maker Odwalla Inc. was on the verge of becoming a national brand when E. coli bacteria in its bottled apple juice was blamed for 66 illnesses and the death of a 16-month-old girl. Odwalla swiftly pulled its products from shelves, and its executives publicly apologized. The company also upgraded its plant and began pasteurizing most if its fresh juices. Though its sales initially sank, Odwalla, now owned by Coca-Cola Co., became profitable again roughly two years after the recall.
Other food companies have been felled by major recalls just days after they were announced. In 2007, Topps Meat Co., one of the biggest U.S. frozen-hamburger makers, said it was going out of business a week after recalling 21.7 million pounds of ground beef because of possible E. coli contamination. Peanut Corp. of America, a peanut processor blamed for a salmonella outbreak that led to nine deaths and more than 700 illnesses, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy-court protection in 2009, just days after Texas health officials recalled all products made at its Texas plant.
