Maggots, Manure and Rats, Oh My!

Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if there was some kind of government agency that would inspect food plants and make sure they were clean? Just kidding!

Two Iowa farms that produced more than half a billion eggs linked to a salmonella outbreak failed to “fully implement” plans to prevent contamination, US regulators say. Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms of Iowa failed to adequately prevent sanitation problems associated with rodents, maggots and manure, the Food and Drug Administration said today in reports on its website.

This month’s recall, which has sickened as many as 1470 people in the US, may be the biggest withdrawal of salmonella-tainted eggs from the market in at least eight to 10 years, Jeffrey Farrar, the Food and Drug Administration’s associate commissioner for food protection, said recently.

Wright, based in Galt, Iowa, has recalled 380 million eggs since August 13. Another 170 million eggs were pulled from the market August 19 by Hillandale Farms, based in New Hampton, Iowa, bringing the total to 550 million.

Some poultry-house doors at the Wright farm were “pushed out by the weight of manure, which was piled in some cases four to eight feet high,” David Elder, director of FDA’s Office of Regional Operations, said today. “Live and dead maggots too numerous to count” and “excessive amounts of manure” were among the problems FDA inspectors found at the Wright farm, according to one of the reports. “Unsealed rodent holes” and “uncaged hens tracking manure” were found at Hillandale Farms, according to the other report.