12 Of The Biggest Ice Cream Recalls In U.S. History

Yahoo

10-06-2025

Ice cream is a food you rarely think about as something that could be dangerous, but there have been quite a few big ice cream recalls in the U.S. While there have been big ice cream recalls because of foreign objects, undeclared allergens, or Salmonella found in ice cream, the biggest reason for ice cream recalls is Listeria, which tends to be a common factor in frozen food recalls. If you miss just a little bit of Listeria on machinery and surfaces, the same strain can grow enough to infect again even years later, which happened to a few of the companies on our list.
Without frequent plant inspections, it's likely that some of the Listeria infections could have ramped up to become a deadly outbreak. At least one company on our list demonstrated that, even when companies know its products have Listeria, they will sometimes still sell those products. Unfortunately, people died from eating some of those ice cream products, and the company was saddled with hefty fines totaling multiple millions of dollars. We certainly hope it served as a cautionary tale for other ice cream companies to be diligent with their testing, even when the state health department, FDA, or other entity isn't there doing inspections. There are 12 ice cream recalls on our list that are among the biggest in U.S. history, both in terms of the amount of ice cream recalled and the number of people who fell ill or died.
Read more: 13 Popular Vanilla Ice Cream Brands Ranked By Ingredient Quality
While most of the biggest ice cream recalls on our list are related to possible pathogens in the ice cream, in May of 2025, Wells Enterprises recalled over 17,800 cartons of ice cream and frozen yogurt because of foreign object contamination. The worry was that there might be pieces of plastic mixed in with the regular mix-ins for various flavors and brands coming out of the Wells Enterprises plant in Le Mars, Iowa.
The recall was for bulk-sized three-gallon tubs, bringing the recalled product up to over 53,400 gallons of ice cream. The size meant that none of the containers were sitting in the freezers of private residents but instead showed up in places like Johnny Rockets shakes. There were 22 specific flavors affected, ranging from vanilla and chocolate to fancier flavors like cotton candy and mocha almond fudge. The flavors had also been distributed all over the U.S., and the use-by dates had all been between March and October of 2026.
There wasn't a clear indication where the plastic pieces had come from, with the company guessing it might have been introduced through the toppings or broken off of a piece of machinery. The worry was that someone could bite down on a hard piece of plastic and break their teeth, end up with cuts in their mouth, or even choke to death on larger pieces. Luckily, as of the writing of this article, there haven't been any customer complaints or injuries.
In April of 2025, nearly two months before the Wells Enterprises recall, Mochidoki had an even bigger recall because of undeclared allergens in its ice cream. The recall was for over 40,100 cartons of ice cream that had been distributed to Aldi locations in four states.
The affected flavor was Sundae Shoppe Cookies and Cream Mochi Ice Cream, which contained both wheat and soy. However, the company that manufactured the ice cream (Gordon Desserts, operating as Mochidoki), failed to list wheat and soy on the labels. There have been far more recalls related to undeclared allergens since the introduction of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004. Considering that wheat and soy are common allergens, not listing them could have possibly caused life-threatening reactions in customers allergic to those ingredients. Luckily, nobody reported any allergic reactions to the products before they disappeared from Aldi shelves.
The Totally Cool company in Owings Mills, Maryland, was one of multiple brands that recalled ice cream products in June of 2024 after the FDA found Listeria monocytogenes during routine plant inspections. The recall was for over 60 products sold by 13 different brands, including familiar ones like Friendly's and Hershey's.
The Listeria problem at the Totally Cool plant was so serious that the FDA went to federal court in March of 2025 to request a consent decree of permanent injunction against the company. The strain of Listeria in the facility was one the FDA had first detected there in 2017. With Listeria being able to survive and grow at temperatures below freezing, it's easy to get out of control, even when making ice cream. However, the company simply hadn't been following proper safety protocols, resulting in an unsanitary environment conducive to bacterial growth. In fact, of the 70 places around the factory where the FDA tested samples, 11 of them contained Listeria. Plus, inspectors found water dropping into food prep areas from condensation and spray hoses, standing water, a lack of equipment sanitization, and an inconsistency in handwashing and glove changing. In fact, nearly all of the company's health violations were problems it had been cited for previously.
The injunction was detrimental to the Totally Cool company because it included suspending the company's food facility registration. Thus, it could no longer distribute products, causing the factory to shut down and the company to file for bankruptcy.
With the Ice Cream House ice cream recall in August of 2023, we're getting into the territory of listeria in ice cream being a deadly problem. At least two people were hospitalized in New York and Pennsylvania. Plus, a lawsuit claimed that a 36-week-old pregnant woman in Maryland ate the recalled ice cream in July, became sick with a listeria infection, and lost her newborn baby soon after birth.
Not only were the products sold locally at Brooklyn's Ice Cream House, but the company also sent ice cream products out to multiple supermarkets. The recall ended up encompassing over 60 products with the Ice Cream House brand, with not all of them being dairy products. Some were tubs of ice cream, while others were different types of ice cream products like ice cream pies, cakes, and novelty ice cream products.
Months after the recall, the U.S. Division of Human and Animal Food Operations sent a warning letter to the company concerning a new February 2024 FDA inspection of the manufacturing facility because it was clear that the company hadn't implemented all the sanitation changes and repairs the FDA had prescribed. Thus, swabs still came back positive for Listeria, including on parts of the company's soft-serve machinery. So, just because a recall is over doesn't always mean a company's products are safe if it hasn't done a thorough cleaning job.
August of 2023 was apparently a bad time for buying ice cream. At the time, the Ice Cream House was recalling its ice cream for a Listeria outbreak, and so was Real Kosher Ice Cream. The recalled ice cream had gone out to 20 different states, and two people were hospitalized as a result of eating infected products.
The company recalled six flavors of its Soft Serve on the Go and Soft Serve Lite ice creams. These were sealed, single-serving 8-ounce plastic cups of ice cream that came with a spoon for easy consumption. While you could buy them at the grocery store, it was also common for convenience stores to sell them, and there were also plenty of institutions like nursing homes and schools that were serving them, too.
In an interesting turn of events, a private citizen sued the company for not mentioning on the label that the soft-serve product could potentially harbor Listeria. Such a label could have been a red-flag warning for certain categories of potential purchasers to whom Listeria could be a serious risk, such as pregnant individuals, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems.
Like Ice Cream House, Royal Ice Cream Company is another company that ended up getting a warning letter after its recall because it didn't fully follow FDA instructions the first time around. The Royal Ice Cream Company recall was one of many in February of 2022, and, luckily, there were no illnesses associated with the Listeria the FDA had found in the facility.
The recall started out small but grew a bit by the time it was over. At first, it was limited to three flavors of Batch Ice Cream brand ice cream pints. However, a week later, after more testing, the recall expanded to everything the company manufactured, including 18 brands in retail stores in 9 states.
In July, five months after the initial recall, the U.S. Office of Human and Animal Food Operations sent a letter to the company accusing it of not addressing many safety concerns the FDA had during its earlier inspections as well as unsanitary employee practices. Not only did the FDA still find Listeria present in the facility when swabbing machinery and surfaces, but it also found three different Listeria strains that had been found at the facility before. So, once again, there's no guarantee that companies that have had FDA-initiated recalls are doing a thorough job of making their facilities pathogen-free.
The Listeria outbreak behind the Big Olaf Creamery ice cream recall of 2022 is the stuff of nightmares, as it was responsible for making more people sick from Listeria than any other on our list. Not only did people end up in the hospital, but there was a death and miscarriage.
The Listeria strain traced back to Big Olaf Creamery was responsible for an outbreak in 11 states. The recall ultimately covered all Big Olaf Creamery products with expiration dates through June 30, 2022. The ice cream had not only gone out to retailers and restaurants, but some had ended up in senior homes as well. A total of 28 known fell ill, with all but one of those ending up in the hospital and one dying. The husband of the woman who died sued and was awarded $4 million. The median age of those who became sick was 62, and seven of the people who became ill were pregnant or newborns. Listeria from this outbreak was also responsible for a miscarriage.
The company ended up getting a warning letter from the U.S. Division of Human and Animal Food Operations a few months later in December to ask why the company hadn't bothered to respond in writing to explain how it had rectified its shortcomings, as required. Ultimately, several franchised retail locations changed their names and rebranded themselves. However, there are still some locations open under the Big Olaf name as of 2025.
Velvet Ice Cream faced a double whammy of recalls in 2021. A larger April recall was related to Listeria, while a smaller September recall happened because of undeclared allergens.
When the company was doing its routine testing, it identified the presence of Listeria in its facility. The company cooperated with the FDA in voluntarily recalling all the products it had sold for the past month between the end of March and the end of April. The recall covered nearly 100 ice cream products being sold in supermarkets in four states under several brand names. The quick and comprehensive recall helped avoid any illnesses, hospitalizations, or deaths.
Five months later, in September, the company issued a smaller recall for one flavor and one size of its ice cream because of possible undeclared peanuts (which could've affected allergy sufferers). This time around, an error stemmed from a third-party manufacturer who had failed to add the warning to the label.
Luckily, not every Listeria recall happens because people became ill first, which was thankfully the case with the 2018 Fieldbrook Foods ice cream recall. This was a lucky break, considering that several samples of the product had tested positive for Listeria during routine testing.
The company started out by recalling two brands of its orange cream bars. However, in less than a week, the recall had expanded to include both orange cream and chocolate-covered ice cream bars it had sold to around 40 different supermarket chains under different brand names. Some of the affected stores included big names like Kroger, Meijer, and Safeway. In fact, it was one of the biggest food recalls in Aldi's history.
Even though the evidence only pointed to Listeria in products made after the last day of October, the recall covered all the products the company had produced throughout the entire year of 2017 just to be safe. The company also stopped making all of its products while trying to find the source of Listeria in the plant under the FDA's guidance.
The deadliest ice cream recall in U.S. history was the 2015 Blue Bell ice cream recall. After this Listeria outbreak was over, there had been 10 cases in four states, with all 10 of them ending up in the hospital and three dying.
When the outbreak happened, Blue Bell ended up voluntarily recalling every ice cream and other frozen product that anyone anywhere had, no matter which facility it came from. While this sounds a bit extreme, it turns out that the FDA found Listeria during its inspections at plants in three different locations: Brenham, Texas, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and Sylacauga, Alabama. Plus, the inspections revealed other sanitary issues. Not all of the strains of Listeria connected to the outbreak were genetically related, but some were. So, that didn't speak well for the company in general.
The then-president of Blue Bell, Paul Kruse, was prosecuted in 2020 for trying to cover up the fact that the company knew it was selling infected ice cream and ended up paying a $100,000 penalty. Additionally, the Blue Bell company ended up paying $19.35 million in penalties, settlements, etc. Only Chipotle has had to pay a food safety penalty that was larger ($25 million in 2020). Yet, despite the severity of this recall, Blue Bell remains among the most popular ice cream brands.
A company's worst nightmare is to have to recall all of its products, but that's exactly what happened to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams in 2015. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture uncovered Listeria while sampling ice cream products at the production facility. Luckily, the company was able to enact a recall before anyone became ill from tainted products.
All told the company destroyed over half a million pounds of ice cream containers and ice cream sandwiches, as well as containers of sorbet and frozen yogurt. Additionally, the company closed all its scoop shops so that it could find the source of the infection, eradicate it, and ensure that it was only offering the public untainted ice cream.
Unfortunately, just a few weeks after the company thought it had found the machine that was the source of the Listeria outbreak, the company had to stop production again when it realized the Listeria wasn't gone. Luckily, Jeni's had been testing every single batch of ice cream to make sure no Listeria got out of the plant because it didn't want to be the source of a deadly nightmare like Blue Bell. After finding Listeria in a batch that was tested, the company disassembled and cleaned its machines again to ensure it had eliminated every last trace of the Listeria from its plant. While the debacle cost the company somewhere around $2.5 million, at least it didn't cost any lives.
Schwan's 1994 ice cream recall is the oldest one on our list, and it's the one that made the most people sick. It's also the only one that involved Salmonella infection. The Salmonella-tainted ice cream is estimated to have sickened a whopping 224,000 people with Salmonella Enteritidis. While this number is large, it only represents 6.6% of the people who ate the ice cream. While there were thousands of people who had stomach and intestinal illnesses after eating the ice cream, the official confirmed number of cases was 593, with no deaths.
Interestingly, the premix for a large amount of the infected ice cream has been carried in tanker trailers that had previously held unpasteurized eggs destined for the processing plant. It was the infected residue the unpasteurized eggs left behind that was most likely the source of the outbreak, which occurred in 15 states.
It was the Minnesota Health Department that noticed a link between the illnesses and people who had eaten Schwan's ice cream. Schwan's stepped up in a big way that was unusual at the time. Not only did it stop its production process everywhere, but it also took steps to warn customers about the outbreak, including putting out advertisements about the recall. It even went as far as to have Schwan's neighborhood delivery truck drivers personally tell its past customers about the recall, revealing that their recent gastrointestinal illnesses likely came from Schwan's ice cream.
Read the original article on Tasting Table.