Estrella Family Creamery deals wtih Contamination Issues

I stumbled across this looking for information on another company entirely, and I felt I  had to provide it to my readers, since I was recommending these cheeses recently (in a still-unpublished guest blog) and on this site back in 2008.

The Estrella Family Creamery -- the same one I was just raving about the other day -- has halted sales of their cheese due to contaminated samples of Listeria monocytogenes found in two cheeses (cheeses that have not yet been distributed to the market) and in one of their aging caves. Consumers are advised by FDA to discard cheeses they have already purchased in case the contamination has been existing for a while.


No illnesses have been reported.


Here's a link to the 9/4/2010 FDA Advisory.

Here's a link that includes information from the Estrella family as well as the FDA:
http://www.dbtechno.com/recall/2010/09/07/recall-issued-for-estrella-cheese/

Here's a more detailed one "clarifying" the situation (it's the report that provides some of the details in my first paragraph.)
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019819817



And here's what it says on their site:

"9/7/2010 Despite some news reports now circulating, it is not true that we have recalled any of our cheeses. We are working with the FDA to resolve this issue. We have no reported illness."

I hope that this will turn out to be an example of how the food system should work to resolve contamination issues. I keep reading that there were numerous indications of ongoing problems in the big 15-million egg recall, months before the recall was issued.

Ideally, small producers, responsible and accountable, can identify food safety problems before they hit the marketplace -- which is what Estrella appears to be saying has happened here -- and take steps to eliminate the factors that made the contamination possible.  I really hope that's how this one will play out.

This post is being shared on Real Food Wednesday.