Claremore Daily Progress

Top Stories

Related Photos

  • Ed Randall picks out eggs at Claremore’s Reasor’s. Managers of stores in Rogers County say their eggs have not been recalled due to the nationwide salmonella outbreak. PROGRESS PHOTO/Zack Stoycoff

    Reasorseggsweb.jpg
August 24, 2010

County dodges egg crisis

Zack Stoycoff Staff Writer

CLAREMORE — The salmonella outbreak that triggered a massive egg recall last week has not affected major Rogers County grocery stores.

While officials warn some contaminated eggs may be in Oklahoma, local managers said stores in and near Rogers County are safe because their eggs are not produced in Galt County, Iowa, the source of the outbreak.

“Nothing in our area is what we’ve been told,” said Mike Belmont, manager of the Reasor’s in Catoosa.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has named eggs sold under more than a dozen brand names as potential carriers of salmonella enteritidis, a type of bacteria that has sickened more than 2,000 since May. That’s caused what may be the largest egg recall in U.S. history — 500 million eggs since Aug. 13.

Darryl Martin, manager of Warehouse Market in Claremore, said his store’s eggs come from Arkansas and are unaffected. Zach Green of Claremore’s Walmart and Dean Kren of Reasor’s in Claremore said they also anticipate no recall of their eggs.

A Reasor’s corporate spokeswoman confirmed that no Reasor’s store, including in Owasso, has had eggs recalled.

Eggs at Inola’s M&S Foods are also clean, a manager there reported.

It is unclear how many eggs in Oklahoma have been recalled, but a handful of brands are affected, including Albertson, Country Eggs, Farm Fresh, Mountain Dairy and Sunny Meadows.

Not every carton sold under those names have been recalled.

Farm Fresh eggs are sold at Claremore’s Reasor’s, for example, but are not part of the recall.

 Employees posted a note in that section assuring customers of the eggs’ safety in spite of bearing the Farm Fresh name.

A complete list of the brands, egg-producing plants and Julian dates affected by the recall is available at www.foodsafety.gov. Plant numbers and Julian dates are printed on the end of egg cartons.

Julian dates are listed as three digits and plant numbers are four digits and begin with the letter P (for example, P-1026 229).

The recall encompasses cartons with date numbers between 136 and 229 that also have plant numbers of 1026, 1413, 1663, 1686, 1720, 1860, 1915, 1942, 1951 or 1946.

Those numbers represent eggs from Galt County in Iowa produced since May.

Health officials say consuming raw or undercooked eggs severely increases the chance of food poisoning. Symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever.

It can be fatal to those with weak immune systems. 

Text Only
Top Stories