Companies have begun pointing fingers at one another and offering conflicting theories about the possible source of salmonella contamination that has sickened 1,470 people and led to the recall of 550 million eggs.
Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, whose chicken-feed samples tested positive for salmonella, has suggested the contamination might have come from a feed ingredient, bone meal, supplied by another company.
That company, Central Bi-Products of Redwood Falls, Minn., strongly disagreed Tuesday and said its heat-processed bone meal was untainted when it was shipped.
The Food and Drug Administration said it still didn’t know where the contamination found by its inspectors originated. It issued a report Monday citing many sanitation problems at Wright’s facilities, such as flies, frogs, pigeons, piles of chicken manure, and bird droppings.
The tainted eggs haven’t been tied to any deaths, according to the U.S. government. The strain of bacteria linked to the illnesses was found in feed made by Wright’s parent company, Quality Egg LLC, which also supplies the other major egg producer in the recall, Hillandale Farms of Iowa.
Wright raised the issue of its supplier Thursday when the FDA said the feed and bone meal showed traces of salmonella. Wright spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said the company kept bone meal in an overhead bin and the ingredient was tested separately by FDA officials.
“This finding obviously is of great concern to us,” Wright said in a statement, adding that the company provided the FDA with information about its supplier and immediately notified that company of the testing results.
Central Bi-Products’s president, Don Davis, said in an interview that he was “shocked and surprised” that anyone was suggesting his bone-meal ingredients were tainted, in light of recent FDA reports on Wright County Egg farms.
He said Central Bi-Products heats its meat and bone meal to temperatures of up to 260 degrees to kill any bacteria, including salmonella, and hires a company to test its products regularly. The ingredients are later added to the chicken feed as a protein supplement. It appears “obvious” that any contamination occurred after the meal left Central’s plant, Mr. Davis said.
If that is so, the question remains as to when the salmonella got into the feed, which the FDA has said is a likely source of infection in the chickens and their eggs.
The sanitary conditions in the Quality Egg feed mill, where feed and feed ingredients are stored, showed multiple points of possible contamination, according to the FDA.
Storage bins containing ingredients including the meat and bone meal were rusted, porous and exposed to live birds and avian feces, FDA investigators said. They also said rodents, a major source of salmonella, appeared to have access to many parts of the barn.
Quality Egg mixes the bone meal with corn and soy meal to make the feed that is given to chickens. An FDA official said individual ingredients were usually heat-treated but the final feed wasn’t processed again.