Salmonella Egg Recall Expands

Wright County Egg of Iowa is expanding the egg recall it issued last week to 380 million, up from 228 million. The eggs are linked to a major outbreak of <"https://www.yourlawyer.com/practice_areas/food_poisoning">Salmonella.

The brands of shell eggs included in the expanded recall are: Albertsons, Farm Fresh, James Farms, Glenview, Mountain Dairy, Ralphs, Boomsma, Lund, Kemps and Pacific Coast. According to the new recall notice, the eggs in the expanded recall are packed in varying sizes of cartons (6-egg cartons, dozen egg cartons, 18-egg cartons, and loose eggs for institutional use and repackaging) with Julian dates ranging from 136 to 229 and plant numbers 1720 and 1942.

Dates and codes can be found stamped on the end of the egg carton or printed on the case label. The plant number begins with the letter P and then the number. The Julian date follows the plant number, for example: P-1720 223.

Eggs under the original recall are packaged under the following brand names: Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps. Eggs are packed in varying sizes of cartons (6-egg cartons, dozen egg cartons, 18-egg cartons, and loose eggs for institutional use and repackaging) with Julian dates ranging from 136 to 225 and plant numbers 1026, 1413 and 1946.

Eggs involved in both the original and expanded recall were distributed to food wholesalers, distribution centers and foodservice companies in California, Arizona, Missouri, Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Illinois, Utah, Nebraska, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. These companies distribute nationwide, according to the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

As we reported yesterday, an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis linked to the recalled eggs has sickened hundreds of people around the country. Preliminary information from investigations of outbreaks in California, Colorado, and Minnesota revealed several restaurants or events where more than one person ill with this type of Salmonella had eaten. Information suggests that shell eggs are the likely source of infections in many of these restaurants or events, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Further investigation traced many tainted eggs to Wright County Egg.

According to the CDC, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of Salmonella Enteritidis infections reported to PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories. Other states have also reported increases since May 2010,

According to a report in The New York Times, Jack DeCoster, the owner of Wright County Egg, has “had run – ins with regulators over poor or unsafe working conditions, environmental violations, the harassment of workers, and the hiring of illegal immigrants.”

The Times is also reporting that the current Salmonella outbreak was the largest of its type related to eggs in years. It is impossible to know how many people had fallen ill so far, because in most outbreaks, only one of every 30 cases is reported.