Panera Bread may be in trouble over its cream cheese, which it has pulled due to fears that it may be contaminated with listeria.
The restaurant announced a national recall of cream cheese products from its bakery-cafes due to concern that these may be tainted by the bacteria. No illnesses have been reported in conjunction to Panera’s products, but the chain found that one variety of its two-ounce cream cheese from a single production day came up positive in terms of whether or not it had listeria.
The results surprised the company as it tested cream cheese samples manufactured before and after the production run, resulting in no traces of listeria. The bacteria causes listeriosis, which is a potentially fatal infection caused by eating food that’s been contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.
Roughly 1,600 people are afflicted with the illness every year in the U.S., 206 of which die, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The infection is most likely to affect pregnant women and their newborns, as well as adults aged 65 or older and people with a weakened immune system, according to the CDC.
Listeria’s symptoms include high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, according to data Panera attained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The products recalled include two-ounce and eight-ounce cream cheese packs with an expiration date before or on April 2, 2018.