A West Pawlet farm has reported listeria contamination in its raw milk cheese – the first such report in Vermont in at least 35 years, according to the state’s dairy section chief.
Consider Bardwell Farm reported to state and federal authorities that it had found listeria monocytogenes, a germ that can cause serious illness in pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC said that about one in five people with the listeria infection die. When it occurs during pregnancy, it can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, or newborn death.
E.B. Flory, the dairy section chief at the state Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets said Oct. 7 that the contamination was found through routine testing and none of the contaminated cheese reached any market. Consider Bardwell sells its raw cow and goat milk cheese at several stores in New York City, and at stores in Dorset and West Pawlet. Whole Foods markets issued its own recall notice for the company’s Dorset cheese for its stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. The FDA said the products were also distributed in California and Texas.
“The recall was for any cheese that may have been in contact somehow with any of these” contaminated cheeses, Flory said. “They did a recall to be absolutely safe that nothing out there is endangering people.”
Consider Bardwell, which makes the cheese on its 300-acre farm in Vermont and New York, said in a statement that it was working to recall and account for all Dorset, Slyboro and Experience cheeses aged in the farm’s washed rind cave.
“Only cheeses that were aged in our washed rind cave are of concern,” the company said on its website. “The majority of the Experience we sold at our farmers markets was not aged in this cave, but we are including it in the recall to simplify matters.”
Food safety recalls are a regular occurrence in Vermont; King Arthur Flour on Oct. 3 recalled some of its unbleached all-purpose flour because of a potential E. coli presence found through sampling, the company said. Flory said most recalls are for undeclared allergens found in food.
But a recall for listeria or a similarly serious pathogen is unusual, said Flory, who said staff in the dairy section can’t remember one happening at any time.
“We take our sanitation seriously,” Flory said. “We haven’t had any recall involving listeria or serious things like that in … it’s probably closer to 50 years.”
Pasteurization will kill listeria, Flory said, who estimated that about half of the state’s cheesemakers sell unpasteurized products.
When there is a dairy-related recall, Flory’s section oversees the record-keeping and the destruction of the products. Consider Bardwell Farm did not return messages from VTDigger seeking comments about the amount of cheese that will be destroyed or the financial impact of the recall. The FDA said no illnesses had been reported in connection with the recalled products.
“Bardwell is taking the right steps,” Flory said. “I consume raw milk cheeses and I still will.”
