Sarasota ice cream maker faces 2 lawsuits over listeria, but it hasn’t issued a recall

A Florida ice cream maker is facing two lawsuits after the CDC linked their products to a deadly outbreak of listeria, but the company has not yet issued a recall.

One lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges an Illinois woman died of a listeria infection after eating ice cream produced by Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota County.

And a Massachusetts woman is suing Big Olaf after she says she became seriously ill and lost her pregnancy due to contaminated ice cream she ate while visiting Florida, her lawyers told the Bradenton Herald.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday it was investigating a 10-state listeria outbreak. The agency confirmed multiple illnesses had been connected to Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota.

The alert advised consumers to throw away the company’s ice cream and watch for signs of infection. Listeria is more likely to cause serious illness among the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.

No signs of a recall

Big Olaf Creamery has not issued a recall for its products.

The CDC said Saturday that the company was voluntarily contacting its retailers advise against selling the ice cream, but several of the independent retailers who sell the brand chose to remain open.

Product recalls are typically issued voluntarily, the Food and Drug Administration says, though the agency can request — and in some cases require — that a company recall a dangerous product.

As of Wednesday, no recall for Big Olaf Creamery products was documented in FDA’s database, or in a statewide database maintained by the Florida Department of Health.

FDOH is leading the epidemiological investigation of the listeria outbreak. On Wednesday, spokesman Jeremy Redfern told the Bradenton Herald that consumers should continue to avoid Big Olaf products.

“The Department of Health advised Big Olaf to suspend sales and production until further notice. They informed us that they’d be contacting those that serve their product to recommend that they stop serving.

“It appears that they aren’t necessarily taking our advice,” Redfern said in an email.

There are two Florida agencies involved in the oversight of Big Olaf Creamery products.

Big Olaf Creamery’s Sarasota production facility is regulated by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, while the retail locations are regulated by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

This week, FDACS conducted an inspection and collected samples from the Sarasota production facility, department spokesperson Erin Moffet told the Bradenton Herald. Those samples are now in Tallahassee at state-run laboratories, where products are biologically and chemically tested for contaminants, including listeria.

Testing results are expected sometime next week.

If contamination is found, FDACS can’t require a recall, but the agency can issue a “stop sale” that requires destruction of the affected product.

In a public statement on Saturday, Big Olaf Creamery posted on Facebook that the investigation is “only speculation” and it was unclear why the company was being “targeted” after six of 23 patients had mentioned eating their ice cream.

“Our brand has not been confirmed to be linked to these cases...” a post on the Big Olaf Company Facebook page reads.

“We have been cooperating with the Florida Department of Health, FDACS and the FDA as soon as we were informed about the situation,” the post continues. “We have been transparent and have answered all their questions and provided them with all the information requested from us, as the health and well being of the public is our first priority.”

Big Olaf Creamery did not respond to the Bradenton Herald’s requests for comment over the weekend or on Wednesday.

‘It’s insane’

Ryan Osterholm, an attorney with OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers who has been retained by several victims of the outbreak, was critical of the company’s response.

“They don’t announce something like this unless they are about 100% sure,” Osterholm said. “There’s whole genome matching,” Osterholm said, referencing a process used to identify specific strains of listeria and pinpoint where they originated.

The investigation of the outbreak is ongoing, and government agencies have not yet announced any testing results.

“Public health officials continue to interview people about the foods they ate in the month before they got sick,” the CDC said in its Saturday report.

“Of the 17 people interviewed, 14 (82%) reported eating ice cream. Among 13 people who remembered details about the type of ice cream they ate, six reported eating Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream or eating ice cream at locations that might have been supplied by Big Olaf Creamery.”

The company’s ice cream is produced in a central facility off of Cattlemen Road in Sarasota before it is distributed to retailers, including five independently-owned Big Olaf ice cream parlors in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

After the investigation was announced, several of the independently owned locations stayed open and continued to serve ice cream over the holiday weekend. The shop in Siesta Key has since announced that it is closed until further notice. The St. Armands Circle location temporarily closed, but announced Thursday that it would reopen and serve a different brand of local ice cream out of “safety and concern” for customers.

At least one location at 3973 Cattlemen Road in Sarasota remained open for business on Tuesday, a Facebook post said. The post defended the safety of Big Olaf Creamery’s products.

“It’s insane,” Osterholm said of the decision to continue serving Big Olaf ice cream, noting that the owners could be opening themselves up to potential criminal litigation as the investigation continues.

Lawsuit claims ice cream caused death

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Middle District of Florida alleges that a woman died from listeria poisoning after eating the ice cream maker’s contaminated product.

The suit was filed by the estate of Mary Billman, who died on Jan. 29 at age 79. The Illinois woman was visiting her daughter in Florida when she ate at a Big Olaf Creamery parlor on Bahia Vista in Sarasota on Jan. 18, the suit says.

It describes how a week later, she became ill with gastrointestinal symptoms and a fever. On Jan. 27, she woke up with a 103 degree fever, was transported to the emergency room and hospitalized for septic illness treatment.

At the hospital, Billman’s organs began to shut down, and she lost consciousness before her family was able to see her again, the suit says. She remained unconscious until her death on Jan. 29.

She is survived by her husband Richard Billman, three daughters, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, the suit says.

The family is being represented by Bill Marler of the Seattle-based food safety law firm, Marler Clark.

A lawsuit represents only one side of a dispute.

Woman hospitalized, lost pregnancy, lawyers say

A Minnesota law firm, OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers, has been retained by two other clients who were impacted by the listeria outbreak, including a 35-year-old Massachusetts woman who became seriously ill and lost her pregnancy due to listeria infection, attorney Ryan Osterholm said.

“We’re going to be filing shortly,” he said Tuesday afternoon.

The CDC’s investigation page shows that two people in Massachusetts were sickened in the outbreak.

The woman was briefly visiting Clearwater Beach, Florida, for a wedding when she allegedly ate the contaminated ice cream at Beverly’s Ice Cream in a Hyatt Regency hotel on the beach. The shop is listed as a retail partner on Big Olaf Creamery’s website.

Osterholm said the woman returned home before falling ill about three weeks later, and she was hospitalized just about a month after eating the ice cream.

The attorney says his client had sepsis and was “close to dying.” She lost an unborn boy, Osterholm said. The pregnancy was about 20 weeks along.

“We’ve seen this before with ice cream,” Osterholm said. The attorney has represented foodborne illness clients for about a decade — including a Houston man who was sickened in 2013 during a listeria outbreak that left three people dead and was traced to Blue Bell ice cream.

“I’d be shocked if they don’t find it in their production facility. That’s how listeria proliferates. It gets in the facility, and if you’re not doing deep cleans every so often, it sticks around.”

This story was originally published July 7, 2022 at 5:50 AM.