Iowa egg farms settle suit over salmonella recalls

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-MSNBC

Ryan J. Foley

The Iowa egg producers blamed for a 2010 salmonella outbreak have settled a lawsuit brought by a California distributor that lost profits from the foodborne illnesses and the resulting product recalls, court records show.

Quality Egg and Hillandale Farms reached the settlement Thursday with NuCal Foods Inc., ending three years of litigation in federal court in Sacramento that shed light on the outbreak and its aftermath. Financial terms were not immediately released.

Quality Egg was based in Galt, Iowa, and owned by Jack DeCoster, who built one of the nation's largest egg production empires while amassing a long history of violating food safety, labor and environmental rules. Hillandale Farms had ties to DeCoster's operations, processing and marketing shell eggs from some Quality Egg plants.

The companies issued recalls covering 550 million eggs in 2010, after scientists traced illnesses back to their farms in northern Iowa, which were described by investigators as having filthy conditions. The government has estimated that up to 62,000 people were sickened in the outbreak.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/iowa-egg-farms-settle-suit-over-salmonella-recalls-6C10643236

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Just beat the time limit.

[fasttense]

1. This is why you need to buy your eggs from local farmers or Farmer's Markets.

Their system of operation are not as intense and an outbreak of salmonella is very rare.

In fact I know of NO chicken small farmer who had problems with salmonella. for decades TN required ALL chicken small farmers to be inspected in order to sell their eggs. Not once did they find salmonella to be a problem.

I have kept laying hens for egg sales now for over 5 years and have never had any diseases or mites among my chickens.