TURNER, Maine - A company linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,900 people around the country and led to a massive egg recall in 2010 is taking over Maine's largest egg farm in Turner. The Lewiston Sun Journal reports that Hillandale Farms has signed a lease to operate the Turner farm, which is still owned by Jack DeCoster. DeCoster's Iowa egg farm was also linked to the salmonella outbreak. He and his son were both sentenced to three months in jail for their part in it.
Until recently, the Turner egg farm owned by Jack DeCoster has been managed by a division of Land O'Lakes known as Moark. Moark signed a long-term lease and took over the sprawling operation, as well as affiliated companies in Winthrop and Leeds in 2011.
But about a year ago, Land O'Lakes announced in its annual report that it would begin "divesting" most of its egg business and selling off some of its Moark assets. Getting out from the lease in Turner is consistent with that strategy, according to one person familiar with the industry. The source, who asked not to be identified, says Hillandale, has a good reputation in the egg industry despite its link to the salmonella outbreak.
Dr. Gregory Martin, a poultry educator with Penn Sate University, agrees. "Hillandale has been very responsive to both their customers and their farms, as far as the needs for their birds and the needs for their workers," Martin says. "So, yes, they've been fairly attentive to things that need to be done on a farm." Martin says he has worked with Hillandale and other egg producers to make sure they take other steps to prevent salmonella contamination.
But Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society of the United States, takes a different view of the company. In June, the group used an undercover worker to videotape conditions at its Pennsylvania farm.
"Hillandale was selling eggs at Costco that had a label on the carton depicting free-ranging hens with a little red barn in the background, and we at the Humane Society of the U.S. suspected that that may not be how these birds are actually treated," Shapiro says. "So we did our own investigation, and what we found was absolutely sickening."
Shapiro says not only do the hens never touch a blade of grass or feel the sun on their backs, they're locked in cages that are so cramped the birds are unable to spread their wings.
"We found dead birds on top of live birds in cages," he says. "In fact, some of them had been dead for so long they'd become mummified corpses, like pancakes on the floor of these cages, and the surviving birds were laying the eggs for human consumption right on top of these decaying corpses."
Both Hillandale and Costco take issue with that description, as does Dr. Gregory Martin, who says he, along with several other inspectors, went out to the farm to check it out. "And we did not see anything that was in agreement with what was being purported by what they were showing on tape."
Paul Shapiro says the video speaks for itself. In 2010 a similar video and undercover operation by the Ohio-based group Mercy for Animals prompted Jack DeCoster to settle a Maine case involving 10 counts of animal cruelty. He paid $130,000 in fines.
DeCoster has long been the subject of numerous state and federal raids, investigations and lawsuits in Iowa and Maine for immigration, labor and environmental violations. His company was also fined more than $6 million for the salmonella outbreak.
It's unclear what role, if any, DeCoster will have in Hillandale's operation. Calls to his attorney, Hillandale and Moark were not returned. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is currently reviewing Moark's application to transfer existing permits to Hillandale. A spokesman says there is no timetable for a decision.
