Every time a company gets caught with their fingers in the food safety cookie jar, they make pledges to improve food safety procedures. What planet were they living on before? Had they never heard of outbreaks involving similar products? Taking preventative actions? Not making their customers barf?

I’ll stop looking at the world through beer goggles.

CTV News reports a small, organic cheese maker on B.C.'s Saltspring Island is continuing production after a big product recall this week, but with stricter safety measures in place.

Three varieties of Camembert manufactured by Moonstruck Organic Cheese were recalled Monday, after the B.C. Centre for Disease Control discovered the listeria bacteria in one wheel of cheese.

Moonstruck cheesemaker Julia Grace told CTV News that the company has vowed to bump up its safety procedures, and all cheese is now being independently tested before sale.

"It's going to be a shake up but it's going to make us a stronger company. Once you've had an experience like this, you tighten up your measures more ferociously just to make sure this never happens again," she said.

Maybe I’m losing something in translation.

On Sunday, Prolactal of Austria said in a statement that its Quargel cheese, which has killed 8 or 10 people depending on the source, and has sickened dozens, was contaminated with listeria from using cultures “that do not give enough protection," whatever that means.

Today, the Styrian weekly newspaper Woche claimed the company said “a scarab or type of beetle (Dungkäfer or aphodius fimetarius) had been the carrier of the disease. Beetles had climbed through a window left open and contaminated machines used to make the cheese.”

So if making cheese, don’t leave the windows open.

Twelve people have been hospitalised with listeria infections, nine of them having become ill after eating deadly Quargel cheese produced by Styrian firm Prolactal GmbH.

The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) also reported today that a 57-year-old man became the seventh person to die from eating the tainted cheese. The previously known deaths -- four Austrians and two Germans --occurred in 2009.

AGES said that all infections occurred before Prolactal's tainted cheese was taken off supermarket shelves on January 23.

Health authorities have struggled to link the listeriosis deaths to Prolactal's cheese, because the cases occurred only sporadically and the disease has a long incubation period.

A Prolactal spokesman said,

"A comprehensive investigation that will determine the cause of the contamination is our highest priority."

The firm said it had received more than 500 calls as of Wednesday last week on the hotline it set up for concerned consumers on 0800-201080.

The relatives of the six people who died are planning to sue Prolactal.

According to a Eurosurveillance report earlier in Feb., approximately 16 tons of Quargel per week are produced by the Austrian manufacturer. Fifty-three per cent of the product is exported to the German market and small amounts to the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. This cheese is made of curdled milk, which ripens after addition of starter cultures for one day at 28°C, and after being sprayed with Brevibacterium linens for another two days at 14°C. The shelf life after packing and marketing is two months.

This is why listeria matters, especially to pregnant women and others who may be immunocompromised.

Two Oregon mothers have been sickened by listeria after eating tainted Mexican-style cheese made in Yakima, causing their babies to be born with a serious illness.

Another person got sick as well in Washington state after eating Queso Fresco made by Queseria Bendita in Yakima. The firm's three cheeses, including Requeson and Panela, are being recalled.

William Keene, senior epidemiologist with the Public Health Division, said,

“All of these people were hospitalized. No one has died but with five people we’re lucky. … Queso fresco is a recurrent source of problems because it's made with raw milk and often under poor conditions.”