3 Listeriosis Cases Trigger Cheese Recall

A manufacturer of soft, Mexican-style cheese shut its City of Industry plant and recalled its products Wednesday at the request of state health officials, after authorities found potentially deadly listeria bacteria in one of the company’s cheeses.

Officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told California authorities Wednesday that they had tentatively linked three cases of listeriosis in Tucson, Ariz., to the Queso Fresco brand of moist cheese manufactured by Rodeo Industries Inc., said Jan Wessell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

“As a precautionary measure, manufacturing operations at this plant have been suspended,” Wessell said.

At the request of her department and the state Department of Health Services, Wessell said, Rodeo Industries has asked retailers to return all of its products immediately.

The step was taken after federal authorities isolated the potentially deadly bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes , in a sample of Queso Fresco cheese, Wessell said. The cheese is believed to have caused listeriosis sickness in a 64-year-old woman, a young mother and her premature baby in Tucson.

The cheese tied to the Arizona illnesses is similar to the Mexican-style cheese manufactured by the now defunct Jalisco Mexican Products of Artesia that was blamed for an outbreak of listeriosis in California last year that killed 40 people. All but two of the deaths involved infants, and more than half occurred in the Los Angeles area.

Rodeo Industries, which opened its plant within the last year, manufactures seven cheeses under its own name and two others under the private Jimenez label, Wessell said. The Rodeo products are distributed mainly in California but are also sold in some parts of Arizona, Oregon and Texas. Cheeses bearing the Jimenez label are sold only in Texas, Wessell said.

Officials at Rodeo Industries could not be reached for comment last night.

The seven brands of cheese sold under the Rodeo Industries name were identified as Queso Fresco, Queso Panela, Manchego, Queso Enchilado, Queso Jalapeno, Requeson and Adobera. The Jimenez cheeses sold in Texas are Jimenez Queso Fresco and Jimenez Adobera, Wessell said.

Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, director of the state Department of Health Services, has advised consumers who have purchased any of the Rodeo cheeses to return the product to the store where it was purchased, Wessell said.

The listeria bacterial infection produces flu-like symptoms, including fever, abdominal pain, headaches and nausea. Those at greatest risk are unborn and newborn babies, pregnant women and cancer patients, authorities have said.

Wessell said she does not know how much cheese the Rodeo Industries plant produces but added: “They’re not a very big operation . . . I know they don’t produce every day of the week.”

A spot check of six East Los Angeles-area markets failed to turn up any that stocked the Rodeo Industries products.

Officials of the state health and agriculture departments will visit distributors of Rodeo Industries products today to monitor the recall operation, Wessell said.

Wessell said she did not know if state or federal officials visited the Rodeo Industries plant Wednesday or if state officials made their request for the recall and plant closure by telephone.

Nearly a year after the outbreak of the worst food poisoning epidemic in California history, officials have still not pinpointed how the Jalisco cheese was contaminated.

After a daylong meeting in Sacramento last December, federal, state and local officials told reporters that their “best hypothesis” was that the cheese contamination was caused by unpasteurized milk slipping into Jalisco’s cheese products.

“We are saying that Jalisco was wrong and had Jalisco done their job right, we would not be here today,” Hans van Nes, the state Agriculture Department’s deputy director, said at the time. “We know that for sure . . . something went wrong in that plant.”

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has still not concluded a criminal investigation of the cheese poisoning.

Times staff writer Edward J. Boyer contributed to this article.