Health Law

FDA Cites Firm for Shipping Eggs From Contaminated Farm

By Marler Clark

Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reported yesterday that an egg producer from Ohio received a warning letter from the FDA for "selling eggs from a contaminated farm."

The firm goes by the name "Ohio Fresh Eggs."  The FDA states that Ohio Fresh Eggs "shipped 798 cases of eggs from the farm last October even though company testing had found salmonella at the site."

As seems to be the case no matter where you look, Ohio Fresh Eggs has connections to Jack DeCoster and Wright County Egg.  Wright County Egg was at the center of last summer's massive Salmonella outbreak and unprecedented recall.  It's a lame pun, but the cross-ownership and inter-relation of the egg firms seem like a big shell game.   Brasher provides some helpful explanation though:

The warning letter, dated last Friday, was addressed to the CEO at Ohio Fresh Eggs, John Glessner, who also was involved in Hillandale Farms of Iowa, one of the operations involved in last summer's outbreak along with Wright County Egg. Wright County Egg, in turn, is owned by Jack DeCoster, who provided much of the money for the purchase of Ohio Fresh Eggs from a previous owner. The two companies together recalled 550 million eggs that had been shipped around the country.

Ohio Fresh Eggs provided a quote, painting the shipping of the eggs as isolated and accidental:

In the process of reviewing records with FDA during their inspection, it was determined that due to human error, a shipment of eggs from one barn mistakenly was allowed to ship to a customer. Our farm cooperated fully with FDA to ensure a swift and complete recall of those eggs from our customer, and we are thankful no illnesses were reported.

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).