Listeria in Soft Cheese: The Clover Hill Dairy Recall Explained

If you have any soft ricotta, requesón, or other cheese from Clover Hill Dairy of Mechanicsville, Maryland in your refrigerator, stop reading in a second and go check the label for plant number 24-128. A Listeria outbreak traced to this dairy's soft cheese has hospitalized multiple people and killed at least one, and the FDA has classified the recall Class I — its most serious category, meaning there's a reasonable probability the product could cause serious health consequences or death. The recall started with one product line on June 3, 2026, and expanded on June 18 to cover every cheese Clover Hill Dairy makes.

Here's exactly what's affected, why soft cheese is a particular risk for Listeria, who's most vulnerable, and what to do right now if you find a matching container.

What's Actually Recalled

Clover Hill Dairy first recalled its Soft Ricotta/Requesón cheese on June 3, 2026, after routine testing turned up Listeria monocytogenes. Two weeks later, on June 18, the company expanded the recall to all of its cheese products — not just the soft ricotta line — after investigators matched the outbreak strain to six separate requesón samples and one environmental sample taken inside the dairy's own facility. That environmental match matters: it means the contamination wasn't a one-time batch problem, it was present somewhere in the plant itself, which is a much harder thing to fully contain and why the recall grew instead of shrinking.

The expanded recall covers:

Soft Ricotta/Requesón cheese — 10-, 12-, and 14-ounce clamshell containers, some flavored with jalapeño or other seasonings
Cuajada
Cheddar, white cheddar, Monterey Jack, pepper jack, horseradish cheddar, and Old Bay cheddar

Clover Hill also sells its cheese under several other brand names, so the Clover Hill name isn't the only thing to look for on a label. Check for any of these: Kesso, Quesos, La Ricura, Izalco, De Mi Pueblo, and Rio Lindo. Regardless of which brand name is printed on the front, the identifying detail on every affected container is plant number 24-128, usually printed near the sell-by date or in the fine print on the label.

A second, smaller supplier — Nelson & Isa Lacteos LLC in New York — separately recalled its own 1-pound requesón cheese, sold in plastic clamshells between May 15 and May 28, 2026, after the same outbreak strain turned up in its products. If you bought requesón-style cheese from either company, treat it as recalled.

Where This Cheese Was Sold

Clover Hill Dairy's recalled products were distributed between May 4 and May 30, 2026, into Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The company has said the cheese may have reached additional states beyond that list through secondary distribution, so if you've bought soft or Latin-style cheese anywhere on the East Coast in the past three months, it's worth checking the label even outside those six.

Much of this cheese was sold in smaller grocery stores, Latin markets, and delis rather than large national chains, which is part of why this recall hasn't gotten the same wall-to-wall coverage as a big-box retailer recall — but the risk to anyone who bought it is the same.

Why This Outbreak Has Been Building for Years, Not Weeks

This is where the Clover Hill Dairy story is genuinely unusual, and worth understanding even if none of the products above ring a bell. The CDC's investigation into this outbreak strain didn't start in May 2026 — it traces confirmed illnesses back to March 6, 2023, more than three years before the recall was announced. Whole genome sequencing, the lab technique that lets investigators match the specific genetic fingerprint of a Listeria sample from a sick patient to a sample from a food product, is what finally connected a slow trickle of cases across several states to this one dairy's cheese.

As of the most recent update on June 24, 2026, the outbreak includes 12 confirmed illnesses across Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Virginia, with 10 hospitalizations and 1 death — the death occurred in Maryland. Patients ranged from 16 to 81 years old, with a median age of 55, and the majority were women; roughly 88% identified as Hispanic, consistent with requesón and similar soft Latin-style cheeses being a specific product line within Clover Hill's broader cheese business. Case counts on outbreaks like this tend to rise as investigators finish interviewing more patients and matching more lab samples, so treat these numbers as a snapshot rather than a final total.

Maryland's Department of Health has since suspended Clover Hill Dairy's operating license, and a related supplier, La Ceiba Foods Latin Market, issued its own recall on June 26, 2026, covering multiple cheese brands sold through its stores.

Why Soft Cheese Is a Listeria Blind Spot

Most foodborne bacteria you've heard about — Salmonella, E. coli — need warmth to multiply and slow down or stop growing in a cold refrigerator. Listeria monocytogenes doesn't follow that rule. It's one of the few foodborne pathogens that can actually grow inside your refrigerator, slowly multiplying on cold surfaces and inside cold, moist foods over days or weeks. That's exactly the environment a soft, high-moisture cheese like requesón or ricotta provides: no rind to dry out the surface, no salt-curing to the degree a hard aged cheese gets, and a texture that holds moisture throughout rather than just on the outside.

There's no way to catch this by smell, taste, or appearance. A contaminated container of soft cheese looks, smells, and tastes completely normal. Cooking can kill Listeria, but soft cheeses like ricotta and requesón are typically eaten cold or barely warmed, which is part of why they're a repeat category in Listeria outbreaks — unlike ground beef or chicken, there's no standard cooking step that happens to double as a safety step.

Because Listeria can also spread from a contaminated product to other foods and surfaces in your fridge, the CDC's standard advice after a recall like this one includes cleaning your refrigerator thoroughly — wiping down shelves, drawers, and any surface the cheese or its container touched — not just discarding the product itself.

Who's Most at Risk

Listeriosis, the illness Listeria monocytogenes causes, is uncommon in healthy adults under 65 — many people who eat contaminated food never get sick at all, or experience only mild, flu-like symptoms they'd never connect to a specific cheese. But for four groups, it's a genuinely serious risk:

Adults 65 and older
Pregnant people — Listeria crosses the placenta, and infection during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or a life-threatening infection in a newborn, even when the pregnant person's own symptoms are mild
People with weakened immune systems — including those on immunosuppressive medications, undergoing cancer treatment, or living with conditions like diabetes or kidney disease
Newborns

If you or someone in your household falls into any of these groups and has eaten Clover Hill Dairy, Kesso, La Ricura, Izalco, De Mi Pueblo, or Rio Lindo cheese in the past several weeks, it's worth calling a doctor to flag the exposure even before any symptoms appear — more on that below.

Symptoms and Why the Timeline Is Unusual

Listeriosis symptoms can show up faster or far slower than most foodborne illness, which makes it easy to miss the connection to a specific food. Onset can happen within 24 hours of eating contaminated cheese, but it can also take as long as 10 weeks (about 70 days) to appear — one of the longest incubation windows of any common foodborne pathogen. That long tail is part of why this outbreak's case timeline stretches back years: someone who ate contaminated cheese in one month might not get sick, or connect it to that cheese, until well into the next.

Common symptoms include:

Fever
Muscle aches
Headache
Stiff neck
Confusion or loss of balance
Nausea, abdominal pain, or diarrhea
In severe cases, convulsions

In pregnant people, symptoms are often limited to something that feels like a mild flu — fever and muscle aches — even when the infection is actively affecting the pregnancy. That mismatch between how mild it can feel and how serious it can be is exactly why the CDC recommends any pregnant person who ate recalled cheese contact a doctor regardless of whether symptoms develop.

What to Do Right Now

1. Check your refrigerator for plant number 24-128. Look at any soft ricotta, requesón, cuajada, or cheddar-style cheese, whether it's labeled Clover Hill Dairy or one of its other brand names (Kesso, Quesos, La Ricura, Izalco, De Mi Pueblo, Rio Lindo). The plant number is the reliable identifier across all the brand names.

2. Don't taste it to check. Contaminated soft cheese looks, smells, and tastes normal. There's no home test for Listeria.

3. Throw it away or return it for a refund. Don't try to salvage part of a container or cut around anything — Listeria doesn't stay contained to one spot in a soft, moist product the way surface mold might.

4. Clean your refrigerator. Wipe down any shelf, drawer, or surface the cheese or its packaging touched with hot, soapy water, then sanitize. Listeria can transfer to other foods stored nearby, especially other ready-to-eat items that won't be cooked before eating.

5. Watch for symptoms for up to 10 weeks, not just the next few days. Because of the long possible incubation period, don't rule out a connection to this cheese just because it's been a few weeks since you ate it.

6. Contact a doctor if you're in a high-risk group. Pregnant people, adults 65+, and anyone immunocompromised who ate recalled cheese should call a doctor to flag the exposure, even without symptoms yet.

7. Questions about the recall or a refund? Contact the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission at 240-528-8850, ext. 327, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern.

If You Develop Symptoms

Fever combined with muscle aches, headache, or a stiff neck, especially if it starts anywhere from a day to ten weeks after eating recalled cheese, is worth a call to your doctor rather than waiting it out. Mention the recall by name — telling a clinician "I ate recalled Clover Hill Dairy cheese" gets you to the right test faster than describing generic flu-like symptoms, because listeriosis is diagnosed with a blood or spinal fluid culture, not by symptoms alone.

Go to an emergency room rather than waiting if symptoms include a severe headache, stiff neck with confusion, loss of balance, or convulsions — these can indicate the infection has spread to the nervous system, which is treatable with antibiotics but needs prompt care.

If you're pregnant, call your OB or midwife immediately for even mild flu-like symptoms after eating recalled cheese, regardless of how minor they feel. Pregnancy-related listeriosis is treated with antibiotics, and starting treatment quickly measurably improves outcomes for the pregnancy.

The Bigger Picture: A Three-Year Blind Spot

The most unsettling part of this outbreak isn't the recall itself — it's the three-year gap between the first known illness (March 2023) and the recall that finally connected the dots (June 2026). That gap is a real limitation of how foodborne illness gets tracked: individual cases of listeriosis are rare enough, and spread out enough geographically, that it can take years of accumulating cases before genetic sequencing links them to one source. Maryland suspending Clover Hill Dairy's operating license, and the outbreak strain showing up in the facility's own environmental sample, both point to a contamination source embedded in the plant itself rather than a single bad batch — which is also why the recall grew from one product line to the company's entire cheese output.

This isn't the first time this year a recall traced back further, and reached further, than it first appeared. The egg recall tied to Midwest Poultry Services followed a similar pattern of a single production source reaching multiple store brands before the full scope was clear. The practical lesson isn't to panic about soft cheese generally — it's that traceability back to a specific, accountable source matters, and it's often invisible until something goes wrong.

Reducing Your Exposure to This Kind of Risk Going Forward

A few habits reduce Listeria risk with soft, ready-to-eat dairy generally, beyond just this one recall:

Buy soft cheeses from sources you can trace to a specific farm or small producer, not because small producers are immune to contamination, but because a shorter, more transparent supply chain means a problem is easier to catch and trace quickly if one occurs. Alexandre Family Farm produces dairy products with full farm-level traceability if you're looking to diversify some of your household's soft cheese and dairy sourcing away from larger commercial processors.

Sign up for FDA recall alerts at fda.gov, especially if anyone in your household is pregnant, over 65, or immunocompromised. Recall notices for smaller regional brands like Clover Hill Dairy often don't make it into mainstream news the way a national chain recall does.

Keep cheese in its original packaging until it's finished. Plant numbers and lot codes are how a recall gets traced back to your specific purchase — you can't check a recall notice against packaging you've already thrown away.

When buying soft or Latin-style cheese from smaller markets or delis, ask about the supplier. This outbreak reached consumers partly through smaller grocery stores and Latin markets rather than only big-box retailers, and a direct question to store staff about sourcing is a reasonable habit with any high-moisture, ready-to-eat dairy product.

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