Panera Bread Cream Cheese Recall Includes WA Locations

BELLEVUE, WA - Panera Bread is voluntarily recalling cream cheese products from its bakery-cafes nationwide after one variety showed the Listeria contamination, the company said. The chain said samples of one of its varieties from a single day of production tested positive for the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, and that tests on cream cheese samples manufactured the day before and after were negative.

Listeria Monocytogenes is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems. It's also particularly dangerous to pregnant women, as it can cause miscarriages and still births.

Healthy people usually only suffer short-term symptoms, such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

No one has been sickened by the cream cheese, the company said in a statement Sunday.

In Western Washington, Panera Bread operates stores in Renton, Issaquah, Bellevue, Seattle, Redmond, Woodinville, Edmonds, Puyallup, Lakewood, and Gig Harbor.

Both 2-ounce and 8-ounce varieties with an expiration date before April 2, 2018, are subject to the recall. The affected brands are Plain Cream Cheese, Reduced-Fat Plain Cream Cheese, Reduced-Fat Chive & Onion Cream Cheese, Reduced-Fat Honey Walnut Cream Cheese, Reduced-Fat Wild Blueberry Cream Cheese.

This story was written and reported by Beth Dalbey

Photo by Steven Senne/Associated Press