The Chicken the Layed the Infected Egg

As the issue about the dangers of raw milk came up on this blog last week, the US was just beginning the largest egg recall in the nation’s history.  About 500,000,000 eggs (about 41.5 million dozen) that have been sold since mid-May are being recalled do to exposure or possible exposure to salmonella. The Center for Disease Control (CDC), which depending on your perspective, either is cautious in its published findings or under-reports cases, have confirmed over 30 cases linked to this salmonella outbreak. Keep in mind, not everyone who suffers from food born illness will report symptoms or seek medical attention and not all health officials who treat patients will follow up with the confusing mix of county, state and federal disease trackers - Estimates that place the number of affected people at 1200-1500 are reasonable. 

At the center of the recall is the quaintly named Wright County Eggs, headquarted in Galt, Iowa. Wright County (and a second producer linked to this outbreak, Hillandale in Minnesota) package eggs under the Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma's, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemp labels. Wright County’s management have clashed with regulators over hiring illegal immigrants, housing immigrants, environmental & safety violations, creating an atmosphere in which rape and sexual harassment were allowed – and they have lost, racking up millions of dollars in fines.

The response to a crisis is important: Odwalla and Jack in the Box are 2 examples of owning the narrative in the face of horrible news. On the opposite in end of the spectrum, Wright County Egg owner, Jack DeCoster, is unavailable for comment and the industry group the Egg Safety Center has issued a press release stressing how rare salmonella is in eggs. And as is the wont of industry trade groups, they push the blame back on consumers by reminding people to cook, handle and store their eggs properly. Both organizations have pointed out this recall is voluntary. If I were involved in managing this response the words and phrases: safety, health, family, corporate responsibility, care, concern, precaution, concern for our customers wouldn’t just be choice prose used to reassure the public, they would be the ideals driving the response. 

Annually 5,000 people in the US perish via food poisoning, one estimate places 30 of those fatalities directly on eggs. In this outbreak, the culprit is Salmonella enteritidis, you can get the squeemy details here. With eggs, the bacteria is passed through the infected hens into her eggs. Both the chicken and the egg will appear normal making it hard to detect diseased eggs.

As mentioned in our previous post, small growers, farmers and producers are not immune to outbreaks, but the difference is in the scale. An operation selling 600 eggs a week is going to have a smaller impact than Wright County, whose operation was governed by the new federal regulations for producers that house over 50,000 birds. One stretches a few zipcodes, the other reaches 22 states. The consolidation of food production into the hands of a few major producers doesn’t cause disease, outbreaks or bacteria but boy does it amplify it.