The joint investigation found that certain Blue Bell Creameries ice cream products, including bars, scoops and cookies, were the likely source for some or all of these illnesses. Upon further investigation the CDC said Blue Bell ice cream had evidence of Listeria bacteria in its Oklahoma manufacturing plant as far back as March 2013. The outbreak led to 3 deaths in Kansas.Blue Bell was the nations third most popular ice cream brand. The items came from the companys production facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma . The CDC stated that all five of the sickened individuals, including the three older people who died, were receiving treatment at the same Kansas hospital before developing the listeriosis, suggesting their infections with the Listeria bacteria were nosocomial (acquired, while eating the products, in the hospital). Their pre-existing weakened conditions might help to explain the higher mortality rate in these cases (60%, versus the more normal 20–30%).On April 20, 2015, Blue Bell issued a voluntary recall of all its products, citing further internal testing that found Listeria monocytogenes in an additional half gallon of ice cream from the Brenham facility. 2015–18 European listeriosis outbreak
On 5 July 2018 the Manchester Evening News reported that at least four major supermarket retailers had issued major product recalls as a result of a large supplier confirming possible contamination of frozen vegetables sourced from Hungary.
The supplier, Greenyard Frozen UK, reported to the UKs Food Standards Agency that the factory in which the food was processed had been shut down by the Hungarian Food Chain Safety Office, after which the European Food Safety Authority and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control issued updates stating that at least five EU member states (UK, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden) were affected. Between June 2015 and July 2018, 9 people had reportedly died as a result of listeriosis, of a total of 47 confirmed cases.In an update on the EFSA website, it was stated that the contamination had supposedly been present since at least 2015, and as a result the Hungarian Food Chain Safety Office had prohibited the marketing of all affected frozen vegetables and frozen vegetable packs produced by the plant in Baja between August 2016 and June 2018. This followed a previous study that found the majority of L. monocytogenes isolates had been found in a 2017 sample of various frozen vegetables, with a minority found in a 2016 sample and a small number found in a 2018 sample. The study suggested that the strain identified (L. monocytogenes serogroup IVb, multi-locus sequence type 6 (ST6)) was likely persisting through standard cleaning operations and disinfection procedures, and that since common production lines were in operation, cross-contamination was an additional concern. 2017–18 South African listeriosis outbreak
In early December 2017 an outbreak of listeriosis was reported by the South African Department of Health.