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A Seymour, Indiana based farm voluntarily recalled more than 200 million eggs in nine states Friday. While Indiana was not among the states that produced or received contaminated eggs, the company’s operations could be impacted nationwide.
A notice posted on the Food & Drug Administration website says the eggs shipped to restaurants and grocery stores in nine states may be tainted with salmonella. The bacteria causes nausea, diarrhea and, in rare cases, death. Twenty-two illnesses have been reported.
A Rose Acre Farms spokesperson says they’re voluntarily recalling nearly 207 million eggs because they could potentially be contaminated with salmonella. While none of the eggs came from or went to Indiana, the company is headquartered here.
The eggs were distributed from a farm in eastern North Carolina’s Hyde County. The notice says the recalled eggs include varieties sold in Food Lion and Walmart stores, and served at Waffle House restaurants.
Darrin Karcher is an Assistant Professor of Animal Sciences at Purdue University. While he couldn’t comment on this specific outbreak, he says many outbreaks have a common cause.
“Most of the time when we see an outbreak like this associated with eggs there is likely a very strong component that we have neglected some safe food handling in the process,” he says.
Rose Acre Farms was founded in the 1930s as a family chicken farm in rural Indiana, and is now the second-largest egg producer in the United States.
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