USDA Inspectors at Wright County Egg Failed to Report Unsanitary Conditions to the FDA
USDA egg graders were at Wright County Egg facilities (the egg recall company) and wrote daily sanitation reports. Reporters at the Wall Street Journal went through these reports and discovered that, as conditions at egg plant packing facilities became unsatisfactory, the USDA workers did not report the problems to the FDA, the regulatory body for food safety issues in commercial egg production.
This is disturbing, but what is even more disturbing is the following quote from the Wall Street Journal article:
The USDA said it didn't give notice because "the conditions at the egg plant packing facilities were routine."
Does this mean that bugs, overflowing trash, and egg residue on equipment that can cross contaminate is routine for the egg industry or just Wright County Egg?
I, for one, would be willing to pay more for eggs if I could get a guarantee that the hen house, egg packing plant and all facilities were clean. I might even pay more for eggs if I just could be assured that manure was not allowed to pile up and that dead chickens, mice and bugs were promptly removed, something that was not being done at Wright County Egg, according to the August FDA inspection report and an article in the Des Moines Register.
For the 1500-plus people who were sickened in the egg Salmonella outbreak, there was no guarantee of cleanliness. Instead, they ate eggs produced by a company that let manure piles rise to 8 feet. Contact our law firm for egg lawsuit information.
