Executives with the Iowa egg farms at the center of last year’s salmonella outbreak that sickened nearly 2,000 and led to the recall of 500 million eggs are locked in a legal battle.

Austin "Jack" DeCoster, the man who owns the egg farms, and his former right-hand man, John Glessner are bickering to the tune of $40 million in lawsuits.

In one lawsuit Glessner claims that the DeCoster family has mismanaged its Iowa egg production facilities and deprived him of more than $40 million, including more than $10 million in rent for use of his Hardin County facility, defaulted on bank loans, been "blackballed" by food vendors and been barred from bidding on contracts with retailers.

Clark Kauffman of The Des Moines Register writes in today’s USA Today that DeCoster's Ohio Fresh Egg company is suing Glessner, accusing him of looting the company before he was fired this summer.

An executive with Hillandale Farms of Iowa, which was forced to recall 170 million eggs, sent an e-mail to Glessner in August 2010 saying DeCoster had become a liability to Hillandale.

"Unfortunately, Hillandale Farms can have absolutely no association with Jack, anywhere," wrote Orland Bethel, Hillandale's founder. "We have been told by Costco and Wal-Mart that they will not be doing any business if Jack and his people have any involvement in management."

Hillandale Farms, one of the Iowa culprits in the over-1800-sick-with-salmonella-and-500-million-egg recall, was cleared to start selling eggs again last month, but why would anyone knowingly buy them?

They wouldn’t know because of the Ponzi scheme of renaming food commodities for marketing, and the lack of food safety marketing at retail.
Besides, everyone has gone back to sleep.

Maybe an intrepid journalist can ask Hillandale about their most recent salmonella test results since I’m sure the company is eager to rebuild public trust.

Other jurisdictions aren’t waiting.

State Veterinarian Don Hoenig told Maine lawmakers yesterday the state's comprehensive program to prevent salmonella contamination at egg farms has paid off.

"The result of it is, we have not had a positive building in over a year. We've achieved a measure of success, we're cautiously optimistic that we're on the right track--I don't know for sure that we are--but the vaccination seems to have been a key component of the control program."

Hoenig says after the salmonella outbreak in Iowa this summer, he found himself answering more and more questions from national reporters about Maine's egg inspection program. He told members of the Legislature's Agriculture Committee that's when he realized just how good Maine's program is.

Klaus Torborg, of Lohmann Animal Health, has warned UK producers not to become complacent about controlling salmonella.

The UK has the lowest levels of salmonella in laying hens of any major egg-producing country, but he says that sustaining this relies on vaccination, hygiene, pest control and the disinfection of vehicles, water and buildings.

Salmonella test results for any egg farm should be publicly available to whoever wants them – on the label, at point-of-sale, on a web site, whatever – if that egg producer wants to gain public trust and confidence. I get the whole good-egg-project concept I watch incessantly on Sesame Street but I’d rather my kid didn’t barf from salmonella-contaminated eggs. I’ll do my part, but I want producers to do their part, and advertize the results so I can vote with my money.

A bunch of media outlets are reporting this afternoon that congressional investigators revealed today lab tests found hundreds of cases of salmonella contamination at an Iowa farm in a nearly two-year period before the outbreak that prompted a massive recall of eggs this summer.

Wright County Egg is one of two farms at the center of the massive recall. In a letter to its owner, Austin "Jack" DeCoster, leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said tests confirmed 426 cases of salmonella contamination between September 2008 and the past July, and 73 were "potentially" positive for the strain of the disease involved in this year's outbreak.

The committee's Democratic leaders asked DeCoster to explain those findings when he appears at a September 21 hearing. They also called on him to explain why those test reports weren't included in material the company has provided to Congress so far, and demanded that the company produce "all documents relating to your response to the test results" by Wednesday.

Iowa State University expert Darrell Trampel told the DesMoines Register that is “quite a high level of contamination.” Ideally, farms would have no positive test results for the bacteria, but it would be typical to have half a dozen to a dozen over that period at the most. The test results are from tests of areas around the hen houses rather than of the eggs themselves.

Why does it take over 1,500 illnesses for such data to be publicly released? And what would a day of raw-egg revelations be without another food porn recipe in, this time, the N.Y. Times, for food-processor mayonnaise, using raw eggs.

I expect continued silence from the egg types.

Alison Young of USA Today reports today U.S. Department of Agriculture staff regularly on site at two Iowa egg processors implicated in a national salmonella outbreak were supposed to enforce rules against the presence of disease-spreading rodents and other vermin, federal regulations show.

Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said regulations are only as good as their enforcement, adding, "It goes back to the responsibility of whoever is producing the food. How do you establish a corporate culture where people pay attention to food safety?"

The USDA egg graders, part of an industry-paid program, were at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms at least 40 hours a week — including before the outbreak — inspecting the size and quality of eggs inside processing buildings.

Though USDA regulations say buildings and "outside premises" must be free of conditions that harbor vermin, the agency takes a narrow view of its responsibilities. Under the USDA's unwritten interpretation of the regulations, egg graders only look for vermin inside the specific processing building where they are based, said Dean Kastner, an assistant USDA branch chief in poultry grading program.

The agency interprets outside premises as only the area immediately around the processing building's loading dock and trash receptacle, he said.

Salmonella can be spread by rodents and wild birds. Outbreak investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week released reports documenting filthy conditions in and around egg laying barns at the two companies, including rodents, rodent holes, wild birds, flies and other vermin.

Hillandale Farms spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said the barns at its facility are about 50 feet from the processing building. At Wright County Egg, the laying barns are 50 feet apart and connected to the processing plant, said spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell.

Associated Press subsequently reported two former workers at Wright County Egg facilities, Robert and Deanna Arnold, say they reported problems such as leaking manure and dead chickens to USDA employees but were ignored and told to return to work.

The salmonella outbreak has led to a recall of about 550 million eggs.