WASHINGTON – August Egg Co., Hilmar, Calif., is recalling 1.7 million dozen brown cage-free and brown certified-organic eggs because they potentially are contaminated with Salmonella, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The recall is associated with an ongoing outbreak investigation of Salmonella enteritidis illnesses.

Based on epidemiological information collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 79 consumers from 7 states had been infected by June 5, with 21 cases requiring hospitalization, the FDA said. Among 30 cases with information available, 27 reported exposures to eggs or egg-containing dishes before becoming ill.

The recalled eggs will have printed on the carton or package a plant code number P-6562 or CA5330 with the Julian Dates between 32 to 126. The eggs will be in fiber or plastic cartons.

The eggs within California and Nevada were distributed from Feb. 3 to May 15 with sell-by dates from March 4 to June 4 at retail locations, including Save Mart FoodMaxx, Lucky, Smart & Final, Raley’s, Food 4 Less and Ralphs. The eggs were distributed to Walmart locations in California, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska and Illinois from Feb. 3 to May 6 with sell-by dates from March 4 to June 19.

Two samples from an FDA inspection of August Egg Co. were positive for Salmonella and found to be a whole genome sequencing (WGS) match to the Salmonella strain causing the illnesses. August Egg Co. has stopped selling fresh shell eggs at this time and is voluntarily diverting eggs to an egg-breaking plant for over 30 days, according to the company.

“It is important to know that when our processing plant identified this concern, we immediately began diverting all eggs from the plant to an egg-breaking facility, which pasteurizes the eggs and kills any pathogens,” August Egg Co. said. “August Egg Co.’s internal food safety team also is conducting its own stringent review to identify what measures can be established to prevent this situation from recurring. We are committed to addressing this matter fully and to implementing all necessary corrective actions to ensure this does not happen again.”

Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, according to the FDA. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.