The story
Origins
The company originally opened in 1907 under the name 'Brenham Creamery Company' with the original goal of purchasing excess cream from local dairy farmers and selling butter to people living in Brenham, Texas; a town located approximately 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Houston. In 1911, the creamery began to produce small quantities of ice cream.
By 1919, the Creamery was in financial trouble and considered closing its doors. The board of directors hired E.F. Kruse, a 23-year-old former school teacher, to take over the company on April 1, 1919. Kruse refused to accept a salary for his first few months in the position so that the company would not be placed in further debt. Under his leadership, the company expanded the production of ice cream towards the surrounding Brenham areas and soon became profitable. At his suggestion, the company was to be renamed as 'Blue Bell Creameries' in 1930 after Kruse's favorite wildflower the Texas bluebell.
Leading up to the year of 1936, the creamery made ice cream by the batch. It could create a 10-US-gallon (38 L) batch of ice cream every 20 minutes. That same year the company purchased its first continuous ice cream freezer, which could make 80 US gallons (300 L) of ice cream per hour. The ice cream would run through a spigot, allowing it to be poured into any size container.
E.F. Kruse was diagnosed with cancer in 1951 and died eight weeks after diagnosis. After his passing, his sons Ed and Howard took over the leadership of the company.
Product changes and turning a profit
By the 1960s, the company completely abandoned the production of butter and began focusing solely on ice cream. After many years of selling ice cream only in Brenham, the company began selling its ice cream in the Houston area, eventually expanding throughout most of Texas including the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and the state capital of Austin.
Leading up to the end of the 1970s, sales had quadrupled, and by 1980 the creamery was producing over 10 million gallons (37,850,000 liters) of ice cream per year, earning $30 million annually.
During the year 1989, Blue Bell began selling ice cream in Oklahoma, and throughout the 1990s expansion pushed throughout the South Central and Southern United States, eventually expanding to New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi. In 1992, Blue Bell built a new manufacturing facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Four years later, in 1996, Blue Bell opened a third manufacturing facility in Sylacauga, Alabama, southeast of Birmingham, and eventually expanded into Atlanta and Miami.
Once Blue Bell establishes itself within a market, word-of-mouth usually ensures that consumers in adjacent areas become aware of the brand. Blue Bell has been slow to expand: company executives say they thoroughly research each new market and ensure that all employees in the new markets are fully trained in Blue Bell practices so that product quality can be upheld. Blue Bell often tends to expand to markets during March each year, expanding to Colorado on March 14, 2011, followed by the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas of Virginia in 2013, and Las Vegas in 2014. These expansions are accompanied by the purchase and/or construction of distribution centers in new markets that serve areas within a 75-mile (121 km) radius.
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Listeriosis outbreak
In 2015, Blue Bell issued a series of product recalls for the first time in its 108-year history. The recall was issued on an assortment of items produced at its creameries, due to the discovery of five cases of listeriosis in Kansas believed to be caused by products produced at its creamery in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Three of the five patients who contracted Listeria from the products died.
Despite a series of subsequent recalls, and a temporary shutdown of its Broken Arrow plant, "an enhanced sampling program" launched by Blue Bell produced "several positive tests for Listeria in different places and plants", including three further cases in Texas. As a result, on the evening of April 20, 2015, the company took precautionary measures and expanded its recall to cover all of its products leading to the disposal of over eight million gallons of product in a sanitary landfill.
At the same time, the company shut down production and commenced cleanup and repair operations at its manufacturing facilities. The FDA found that the company failed to follow standard practices to prevent contamination; two years prior to the recalls, the company "repeatedly found listeria" in its Broken Arrow facility. At its main production facility in Brenham, one of its production machines (which produced most of the recalled products) was considered to be so contaminated that Blue Bell announced it would have to permanently stop using the machine. Condensation was also reportedly noted in various parts of the Brenham facility.
Although a spokeswoman for Blue Bell had previously objected towards the idea of subjected job losses, on May 15, Blue Bell announced a series of job cuts and furloughs. 1,450 (or roughly 37 percent) of the company's employees would be subjected to lay offs, while another 1,400 employees were furloughed until cleanup/repair operations concluded, and the remaining 1,050 involved in essential operations and cleanup/repair operations had wage reductions imposed.
Due to limited supply and distribution capabilities expected in the near term, Blue Bell announced it would suspend operations at 15 of 50 distribution centers indefinitely, though it had not ruled out returning to these markets eventually. The affected distribution centers included:
Phoenix, Arizona (2 branches)
Tucson, Arizona
Denver, Colorado
Indianapolis, Indiana
Kansas City, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Louisville, Kentucky
Las Vegas, Nevada
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Charlotte, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Richmond, Virginia
Suffolk, Virginia (Hampton Roads area)
The recalls became so severe that they threatened to shut down the company entirely; executives warned shareholders that they faced a "capital crisis." On July 14, 2015, Sid Bass, a prominent Texas investor, became a partner and investor with the company; Blue Bell secured a $125 million loan to continue pursuing operations. Around the same time, Blue Bell's plant in Sylacauga, Alabama resumed production, creating 'test' batches as part of a "test and hold" procedure in which ice cream is not packaged for sale until the batch tests negative for all strains of bacteria including the strain of listeria responsible for the aforementioned recalls.
Department of Justice investigation
In December 2015, CBS Evening News reported that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) had launched a federal criminal investigation into Blue Bell Creameries, to determine "what exactly Blue Bell executives knew about the contaminations and unsanitary conditions, when they knew, and what they did in response". The investigation, by the DOJ's Consumer Protection Branch, is reportedly led by trial attorney Patrick Hearn, who successfully prosecuted executives of the Peanut Corporation of America in 2015. The company pleaded guilty in 2020 to charges it distributed contaminated products and paid a $19.35 million fine.
On October 22, 2020, Paul Kruse, Blue Bell's Chief Executive Officer during the outbreak, and formerly, its general counsel, was indicted on seven felony counts of conspiracy and wire fraud for his part in the alleged cover-up. In August 2022 the DOJ tried Kruse on five counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy. The trial ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. The DOJ scheduled a retrial for April 2023, but reached a plea deal with Kruse in March. Under the plea deal, Kruse pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of having caused adulterated ice cream products to be distributed and was handed a $100,000 fine, but wasn't sentenced to prison.
Return to shelves and current news
On August 17, 2015, Blue Bell announced a five-phase plan to return to store shelves:
Phase 1: Houston and Austin areas of Texas, plus Birmingham and Montgomery areas of Alabama (near the company's Sylacauga facility).
Phase 2: North central Texas (Dallas–Fort Worth) and northern Oklahoma including Tulsa (near the company's Broken Arrow facility).
Phase 3: Southwest Texas (San Antonio) and central Oklahoma including Oklahoma City.
Phase 4: Majority of Texas plus southern Louisiana including Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Phase 5: Remainder of Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Louisiana, plus all of Arkansas, Florida and Mississippi and parts of Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
However, even in those states where Blue Bell plans to return, it would not necessarily return to all of its pre-recall markets by the final phase. Those markets, including Charlotte, Kansas City, Louisville, and Phoenix, were added based on the fact that Blue Bell will effectively service those areas. Wichita, KS was the last to return in mid-April 2023.
Phase 1 began on August 31, 2015. Phase 2 began in November of 2015. A month later, phases 3 and 4 began.
The day following the initial rollout, September 1, Blue Bell resumed production at its Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, facility.
On January 28, 2016, the company resumed distribution to large portions of the Southeastern US.
On March 6, 2017, Blue Bell reopened the three distribution centers located in Tucson (1) and Phoenix (2) to complete distribution across the state of Arizona
In 2018, children of an interracial family posted an open letter on Facebook addressed to Blue Bell asking that the flavor "The Great Divide" (equal halves of chocolate and vanilla ice cream) be changed to "Better Together". While Blue Bell spokespersons reacted positively to the name change proposal, the post became controversial among some Facebook users who dismissed claims that the original name was offensive.
In March 2018, the company began distribution to much of Indiana, midsection of Kentucky and northern New Mexico.
In March 2019, the company resumed distribution to much of the Virginia area, northeastern North Carolina and greater Kansas City.
In July 2019, Blue Bell Creameries faced backlash after an internet video went viral of a teenager licking a tub of Blue Bell's ice cream then proceeding to place the tub back into the freezer. The location of the event took place at a Walmart in Lufkin, Texas. The individual was later arrested. After the incident, multiple individuals trying to copy the viral act, resulting in more individuals being jailed. These incidents resulted in severe negative reactions asserting that violating food in such a manner is dangerous to the public health, along with criticisms that not enough action was being taken to punish offenders, and against Blue Bell for not protecting their ice cream with a plastic seal.
In March 2022, the company resumed distribution to Clark & Nye counties in Nevada, but there may be possible expansion to greater Los Angeles, California.
In mid-April 2023, distribution returned to Wichita, Kansas.
February 2025 saw southern Utah being introduced for the first time.
March 2026 brought Cincinnati & Dayton, OH to the company's new markets.
From Wikipedia’s article on Blue Bell Creameries, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5