Health Law

Nation's largest egg producer adds 9.6 million eggs to recall

By Drew Falkenstein

In what may be part of the rolling recall in the wake of the half billion egg recall by Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg company, the nation's largest egg seller, Cal-Maine Foods Inc., has recalled 9.6 million eggs (800,000 dozen) due to potential Salmonella enteritidis contamination.  AP reports:

Cal-Maine said it was notified by an Iowa egg producer that between April 9 and Aug. 19, the producer sold 32 truckloads of eggs, or about 800,000 dozen eggs, to the company. The affected products were added Friday to the expanded nationwide recall related to almost 2,000 illnesses from the strain of salmonella reported between May and July, almost 1,300 more than usual.

It wasn't immediately clear which Iowa producer supplied the Cal-Maine eggs. Iowa's Hillandale Farms said Friday that it was recalling its eggs after laboratory tests confirmed illnesses associated with them. The company did not say how many eggs were being recalled or if it is connected to Wright County Egg, another Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs earlier this week.

The eggs subject to Cal-Maine's recall were not produced at any Cal-Maine facility.  Nevertheless, and particularly because of its large market share, doesn't Cal-Maine have an obligation to consumers to know and monitor the companies who is supplying eggs to it?  With a recall now over half a billion eggs, it is more than just a possibility now that Hillandale and Wright County Egg's environmental and flock conditions were not being maintained and monitored like they should have been--i.e. according to the FDA's "egg rule."

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on August 21, 2010 (boomark / email).