Canadian Poultry Magazine

Charges laid in Iowa egg salmonella outbreak

By The Canadian Press   

Features Layers Production Business/Policy Poultry Production Production United States

May 22, 2014 – An Iowa company and two executives have been charged with selling
the eggs responsible for a 2010 salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands of people and led to an unprecedented recall of 550 million eggs.

Disgraced egg industry titan Austin “Jack” DeCoster and his son Peter DeCoster were charged with introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce, a misdemeanour.

A charging document filed in federal court in Iowa alleges the pair and their company sold shell eggs tainted with the strain of salmonella blamed in the months-long outbreak of 2010.

Their company, Quality Egg LLC, which includes the DeCosters’ network of chicken and egg-laying farms in Wright County in rural northern Iowa, is charged with introducing misbranded food into
interstate commerce, a felony.

The document says Quality Egg sold products from 2006 to 2010 with labelling that “made the eggs appear to be not as old as they actually were.”

Read more about the charges and history of the case in The Des Moines Register.  

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