Na Place, a breakfast stand inside Morningstar Marketplace in Jackson Township, goes through about 20 dozen eggs every Saturday and Sunday, owner Na Gardner said.
This weekend, even amid a nationwide egg recall affecting hundreds of millions of eggs, sales didn’t change, Gardner said.
“We (served) a lot of egg (sandwiches) today,” Gardner said. “Just a normal weekend for me.”
Egg sales have remained steady in the wake of the recall, local restaurant owners said, but its effects are still felt in the form of increased questions from concerned customers and, in at least one case, higher charges from egg suppliers.
Two Iowa companies, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, recently recalled more than 500 million eggs, which had been distributed throughout the country, after an outbreak of salmonella enteritidis “sickened hundreds of people across the country,” according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The only eggs subject to the recall were from those Iowa farms, the FDA said.
“Positive environmental samples that match the DNA fingerprint of the outbreak strain of salmonella enteritidis” were found at the Iowa farms, the FDA said.
Na Place gets its eggs from a Lancaster farm, Gardner said.
In Pennsylvania, consumers can look for a Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance Program seal on egg cartons, which signifies that the hens, their environment and the eggs have been tested, said Gregory Martin, poultry educator for the southeast region of Penn State’s cooperative extension program. Pennsylvania is very safe when it comes to egg-handling standards, Martin said.
Lyndon Diner, in West Manchester Township, which also gets its eggs from a Lancaster farm, has fielded questions from customers wanting to know the source of the diner’s eggs, general manager Nicole Platts said.
Platts said she has not noticed a difference in the amount of customers ordering eggs since news of the recall broke.
“I had a couple people say that they’re good eggs,” Platts said.
Round the Clock Diner, in Manchester Township, which orders eggs by the “truckload,” saw its supplier’s prices go up since the recall, owner Dimos Sacarellos said.