March 2011
Rose Haus Update
It has been a week since we recalled one lot of our Rose Haus cheese. Time for a brief update.
First all 5 customers who received this cheese were contacted and any remaining cheese was discarded. No one has been reported ill since release of that cheese a few weeks before this or since the recall date. Since that date, we also stopped shipping washed rinds until we could find a source. FT and CFIA together scoured our facility looking for a source. The good news is that after 2 environmental audits including 60 swabs taken from every nook and cranny in the dairy, no pathogens were found.
While two finished product test lots were already taken, one more was sent in last week. We are still waiting final results. But preliminaries look good.
At this point we continue to not ship any Rose Haus until future lots have been tested and cleared. We have however, resumed shipping other Bonnie & Floyd and Cape Vessey lots of cheese that have already been tested and cleared.
Our current read of the situation is that we believe we have identified the problem early through routine testing and that where ever it appeared in the facility, it is now gone. The reason for the spot findings on certain wheels on certain cheese is likely due to handling based cross contamination.
We do believe that we have dealt with it well as we cannot find it in our environment after very extensive testing. Now it is a matter of remaining product tests to come in to clear future lots. And then we hope to be back to business as usual.
The cheese we disposed of was handled by Scott Environmental in Kingston (www.scottindustrialservices.com). It was important to us to handle the spoiled cheese in an environmentally friendly way. Scott Environmental takes product like this and turns it into composte at their state of the art facility. Todd and Garry had a chance to tour the facility and were very impressed!
We would again like to thank all our supporters, stakeholders and cheese lovers for all your messages of support. Listeria can happen. It is in the soil and in our environment. on your boots. On your hands. While you cannot prevent its existance, you can keep it’s growth under control through careful testing, cleaning and sanitation practices.
As a result of this situation, we have reviewed all our general manufacturing practices and looked for opportunities to strengthen so that risk of this happening in the future is greatly diminished. We will be posting a post mortem report once we have completed all the steps.
If anyone has any questions, we continue to encourage you to give us a call.