Eggs contaminated with Salmonella have sickened more than 750 people in the United States and Europe so far this year, in at least eleven outbreaks, and two people in England have died. The causes are ones public health has understood for decades: bacteria inside the egg, raw or lightly cooked egg dishes in restaurants and delis, gaps in who has to follow the rules, and too much time between the first warning sign and the recall. The fixes are known, too.
The United States: three outbreaks, three very different farms
Midwest Poultry Services, Texas. The largest U.S. egg outbreak of the year was traced to Midwest Poultry Services, L.P. CDC counted 134 people sick in 18 states, 34 of them hospitalized and none dead, with illnesses starting between November 21, 2025, and August 12, 2026. FDA inspectors collected environmental samples at the company’s Texas operation, and three matched the outbreak strain of Salmonella Enteritidis by whole genome sequencing. The recall of more than 1.5 million dozen eggs on July 22 followed the company’s own third-party testing, which found the outbreak strain and was shared with FDA the day before. PulseNet flagged the cluster in April. Of the 134 people sickened, 99 fell ill between April 1 and the day before the recall, nearly three of every four cases. FDA said in July that Midwest Poultry did not account for all of the illnesses and has not named another source. CDC declared the outbreak over on September 3.
Happy Hens, Ramona, California. In San Diego County, an outbreak first tied to raw-egg mayonnaise at the deli in Ramona Family Naturals Market was traced to Happy Hens, a pasture-raised egg farm in Ramona. The count stands at 23 sick and seven hospitalized: 18 connected to the deli and five who got sick from the eggs themselves. FDA sampled the farm’s hen houses beginning August 17 and found Salmonella in two of seven, and genetic testing matched it to the people who were sick. State health officials recommended a voluntary recall on September 4. The farm recalled on September 8, and the public learned of the recall from the California Department of Public Health on September 11. A Happy Hens co-owner said in an Instagram video that regulators had fined the farm for selling checked, or cracked, eggs to the deli. Marler Clark represents seven people sickened in this outbreak.
Leaping Bear Farm, Reading, Vermont. Leaping Bear Farm recalled eggs in cartons dated June 1 through September 5 after state health and agriculture officials found Salmonella in eggs and environmental samples from the farm. Vermont has linked 14 illnesses to the outbreak, and officials say related cases have turned up in other states, without saying where or how many. The eggs were sold at farmers markets and other retailers. About 1,800 hens are involved, a number that matters for reasons explained below.
England: 549 sick, two dead, and imported eggs under investigation
The UK Health Security Agency is investigating three clusters of Salmonella Enteritidis that evidence suggests may be linked to imported eggs. As of September 7, England had 322 confirmed cases and one death in the largest cluster (t5.9411), 186 cases in the second (t0.24068), and 41 cases and one death in the third (t5.9765), for 549 in all. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reported more. In the largest cluster, patients range from infants to 90-year-olds, and 44 of the 176 with information available were hospitalized. Investigators have tied 47 cases to 11 businesses, mainly small cafés, restaurants and takeaways, and at least 24 of those people ate dishes containing egg. Two large importers are being investigated. The Food Standards Agency says there is no evidence implicating UK-produced eggs. The latest figures suggest new cases are slowing.
The largest cluster is not only British. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reports 341 confirmed cases in Europe between May 2025 and August 2026, about 61 percent in the UK and 31 percent in the Netherlands, with others in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany.
France: the same Polish egg group, again
Between May and July, France recorded four outbreaks of Salmonella Enteritidis ST11 tied to homemade mayonnaise, chocolate mousse and tiramisu. Eggs collected at patients’ homes carried strains matching the people who were sick. A French alert to the European Union’s rapid alert system counted 16 sick and four hospitalized. The European Food Safety Authority traced the eggs in all four outbreaks to two packing centres and three laying-hen farms in a single Polish food group, the same farms implicated in the multinational egg outbreak that reached 18 European countries between 2016 and 2020. One implicated batch was laid in a henhouse that had tested negative in December 2025 and again in January, April and June 2026. France suspended sale of the suspect eggs at the end of July. EFSA said the repeat findings suggest persistent contamination, or reintroduction, upstream in the production chain.
Spain: a tortilla left on the counter
In Eibar, 29 people got sick, nine of them hospitalized, after eating Spanish tortillas at one establishment on August 9. Inspectors cited insufficient cooking, tortillas stored at room temperature, weak egg traceability and cleaning, and the risk of cross-contamination. The eggs came from a farm in Aragon. Authorities ordered them withdrawn from other establishments and barred the distributor from marketing until it could show a working traceability and recall plan. Eggs and egg products were behind 131 of Spain’s 250 Salmonella outbreaks in 2024.
Why do eggs keep making people sick?
The bacteria are inside the egg. Salmonella Enteritidis can infect a hen’s ovaries and end up inside the egg before the shell forms. A clean shell is no guarantee, and neither is a clean barn test, as the Polish henhouse shows.
Raw and lightly cooked dishes turn one bad egg into an outbreak. Mayonnaise, mousse, tiramisu, runny eggs at a café and a tortilla left out all day appear on this year’s list.
The rules have holes. FDA’s Egg Safety Rule applies to farms with 3,000 or more laying hens, so Leaping Bear’s roughly 1,800 hens fall below the line. The rule requires prevention plans, environmental testing and refrigeration. It does not require vaccination.
Detection outruns action. Months passed between the PulseNet signal and the Texas recall. More than two weeks passed between San Diego County publicly naming Happy Hens and the state’s recall recommendation, then four more days to a recall and three more before the public was told. In Europe, a Polish group tied to an outbreak that ran from 2016 to 2020 is back.
What would prevent the next egg outbreak?
Vaccinate laying hens. The UK’s British Lion and Laid in Britain schemes vaccinate hens against Salmonella, and the Food Standards Agency considers those eggs very low risk, low enough that it says infants, pregnant people and older adults can eat them raw or lightly cooked. The United States should require vaccination, at a minimum for flocks that supply retail and food service.
Close the small-flock gap. A farm selling into grocery stores, delis and co-ops should meet the same prevention and testing rules as a large one, whatever the size of the flock.
Require pasteurized eggs for raw and lightly cooked food-service dishes. California already requires food facilities to use pasteurized eggs in foods such as mayonnaise under Health and Safety Code section 114012. Every state should. The FSA tells caterers who cannot verify where an egg came from to cook the dish thoroughly or use pasteurized egg.
Act on the epidemiology. When sequencing, patient interviews and traceback point to a farm, name the farm and get the eggs off the shelf. Waiting for an egg to test positive costs weeks, and FDA has mandatory recall authority under the Food Safety Modernization Act for firms that stall.
Finish traceability. Shell eggs are on FDA’s Food Traceability List under section 204 of that law, but compliance has been pushed back to 2028. Spain’s order barring a distributor until it proved it could trace and recall is worth copying.
Hold repeat sources accountable. When the same farms turn up in outbreaks a decade apart, pulling batches is not enough. EFSA’s call to find the root cause at the breeding and production level should be answered, and importers and buyers should demand the results.
Treat every egg as if it could be contaminated. Refrigerate eggs, throw out cracked or dirty ones, keep raw egg away from ready-to-eat food, and cook eggs until the yolks and whites are firm, especially for young children, older adults, pregnant women and anyone with a weakened immune system.
Salmonella in eggs is not a new problem, and none of these fixes is new. What 2026 shows is what happens when the tools we already have are used only halfway.
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