If you have two of Taharka Brothers’ most popular flavors of ice cream in your freezer, you may want to do the unthinkable and toss them in the trash.
The reason: Listeria was detected at Totally Cool, an Owings Mills ice cream manufacturer that helped produce some Taharka Brothers pints as well as products from around a dozen other brands.
The recall notice on the FDA website affects Taharka Brothers’ 16-ounce containers of Honey Graham and Key Lime Pie that were purchased after April 4 and have a best-by date of Oct. 1, 2025. It also applies to some lots of Friendly’s ice cream cakes, Abilyn’s Frozen Bakery ice cream cakes, as well as various products from Hershey’s, Yelloh!, Jeni’s, Cumberland Farms, The Frozen Farmer, Marco, ChipWich, AMAFruits, Dolcezza Gelato and LaSalle.
Customers can either throw the ice cream away, or return it to the place of purchase for a refund.
According to the FDA, no illnesses have been reported in connection with the outbreak. A spokesperson for Totally Cool said in an email that the recall “is being made out of an abundance of caution.”
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While the FDA ordered Totally Cool to recall all the ice cream they’ve made this year, listeria was detected on the ice cream cake production line and not in the pint production area, said Taharka Brothers co-founder Sean Smeeton. He noted that their ice cream had been previously tested for listeria and was clean: “I think the odds of listeria being in our pints are probably close to zero,” he said.
Listeria typically causes just short-term symptoms in healthy people — including fever and diarrhea — but can be deadly for kids and people with compromised immune systems. It can also cause serious complications for pregnancy.
Smeeton said Taharka Brothers has already begun producing both recalled flavors at its Hampden facility and will begin restocking grocery stores and its scoop shops by the end of the week.
Taharka Brothers had partnered with the Owings Mills facility for a single-production run in an attempt to meet the broad demand for its ice cream, he said. Totally Cool produced 28,000 pints in just six hours; it would have taken the Hampden factory a month to put out the same number.
The recall comes at the height of the busy season for Taharka Brothers. “Timing really is bad,” said Smeeton, who predicted the worker-owned ice cream company would lose about $35,000 in product.
People commenting on the Taharka Brothers Facebook page seemed to be taking the news with good humor, though, after the ice cream maker posted about the issue on social media. “Who in the world lets their Taharka sit in the freezer???” one comment read. “We eat it immediately after buying. Yummmmm.”
