Just when you think the Jack DeCoster egg empire couldn’t look more rotten … well, this just in: Court records show managers at one of DeCoster’s Iowa egg farms knew its hens were “almost certainly” laying contaminated eggs months before one of the nation’s largest outbreaks of food-borne illness.
An Iowa State University scientist found the internal organs of chickens, which were dying at an unusually high rate, were loaded with salmonella well before an outbreak of poisoning that sickened more than 1,000 people in 2010.
DeCoster’s Turner operation was not involved in the outbreak and no eggs from that plant were recalled. The Turner plant has, however, been linked in the past to animal abuse and labor law violations.
The tests recently came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by a California company that bought and then sold contaminated DeCoster eggs.
Meanwhile, a federal grand jury is looking into whether company executives misled consumers by continuing to sell the eggs after being told they were almost certainly contaminated.
Back in September of 2010 Jack DeCoster told a congressional committee that he was “horrified” to learn his eggs had sickened about 1,300 people, explaining that his company had become “big” while operating like they were “small.”
Here’s a more likely explanation: The profits were big and concern for public health small.
DeCoster hired people who would go to any lengths — including risking the public’s health — to make sure profits were maximized.
The recent evidence shows managers knew the eggs were bad and went right on shipping them to consumers.
An Associated Press profile of DeCoster once described him as a born-again Christian who ministers to jail inmates and donates money to church and community projects, including those in Turner.
Which is very hard to square with DeCoster’s 30-year history of labor law violations, sanitation problems, animal abuse and record of misdeeds spread over at least three states.
When it comes to running his business, DeCoster has always put profits ahead of scripture.
Sun Journal, Lewiston (June 7)
“An Associated Press profile of DeCoster once described him as a
born-again Christian who ministers to jail inmates and donates money to
church and community projects, including those in Turner.”
Jack is the perfect Republican….. very religious and he can talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. He is very concerned about his image, but not as much as his bottom line. He has been responsible for polluting the water in Martin stream that runs by his smelly, beetle and fly infested establishment on the Plains rd. in Turner. He has helped many illegal workers come here to work for slave wages and live in his run down internment camps, in Turner, and I am sure in other places where he operates also. There are reams of PDF’s that show how he treated his workers back in the early 60’s and 70’s. Yep as I said the perfect Republican. He should run for Senate, “Gubnor” or “sumpin”.
JohnR: It might not surprise you to learn that DeCoster Egg Farms used to provide transportation to any employee who wanted to go to church. However, they would have to attend Jack’s snake handler fundamentalist congregation.
Many of Jack’s employees were hispanic – which means they were also Catholic. Jack would not provide transport to the Catholic church.
What a christian!
I worked for Decoster when I was in high school, cleaning out chicken barns. What a job. I also can proudly say I personally got fired by Jack for telling him what I thought of his job.
He had the same Christian heart back then too. He shoved me off his truck of chicken cages while it was moving, luckily we were in a field at the time not on the highway. Yep he is a real Christian, and as I say a perfect candidate for a republican bully, pushing a high school freshman.
Remind you of anybody??????????????? Lepage maybe???
Somehow I doubt that Mr. DeCoster has managed to be such a bad egg (sorry!) for so long all on his own. Where were the state governments, including Maine’s, for all these years if not in his pocket?
Maybe someday a newspaper somewhere will do some investigative journalism about this that the BDN can reprint.
The former Maine Times did a rather in-depth series about Decoster Egg Farms years ago. Pretty horrifying stuff. This most recent article comes as no surprise.