Food Safety Violations Found at Nine Egg Firms

Government inspectors have found food safety violations at egg farms beyond the Iowa operations linked to last summer's salmonella outbreak.

The Food and Drug Administration has completed inspections of 35 farms targeted because they were associated with previous outbreaks or had a history of poor compliance, reports Des Moines Register. Most of the problems cited by the inspectors involved inadequate record-keeping, the agency reported yesterday, 1 February.

Under egg safety regulations that took effect last year, farms are required to document compliance on a variety of issues, including rodent monitoring and biosecurity measures.

Inspectors found 76 positive samples for salmonella around barns owned by one producer.

Inspectors found one hen-house with inadequate control of rodents, which can transmit salmonella bacteria to the birds. One company did not store its eggs at 45 degrees or below.

Nine companies own the farms, which are located in Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. The company names were not disclosed.

Twelve of the farms were advised of problems that needed to be fixed. No action was needed for 11 others. Evaluations of the rest were still pending.

Des Moines Register reports that last year's outbreak led to the recall of 550 million eggs produced by Wright County Egg of Galt and New Hampton-based Hillandale Farms of Iowa. Both companies were forced in August to divert their eggs to be pasteurized into food products while the FDA investigated the operations and the farms corrected problems.

Hillandale, which had used Wright County Egg's hens and feed, was allowed to resume the sale of fresh eggs in October. Wright County Egg has been allowed to resume some sales of fresh eggs but only from two barns on one of the company's six farms.