Local grocers work to keep NC eggs sunny-side up

The massive egg recall is affecting about a half-billion eggs and is making hundreds of people sick. North Carolina grocers are working to keep customers safe. And so far, eggs in the Cape Fear remain sunny-side up.

North Carolina law requires experts to check eggs at local grocery stores. But there are “egg-stra” things you can do to make sure the food on your plate is safe.

“We tell our Piggly Wiggly customers all our eggs are fresh and you’re not going to have that problem with salmonella,” says Piggly Wiggly Dairy Manager Bill Jackson. Jackson says his eggs come from area farmers and are not on the nationwide egg recall list. “We get around ten or 15 calls a day you know about what kind of eggs we’ve got and everything,” he says. “We put a sign up and let them know these eggs are good.”

The North Carolina Egg Association assures customers the Food and Drug Administration is making sure rotten eggs don’t slip through the cracks in our state. “We have a record of all eggs coming into North Carolina and so they have said they have been checking ever since this outbreak took place to make sure that none of those brands are on the shelves in North Carolina,” says North Carolina Egg Association Executive Director Jan Kelly.

But even with no salmonella outbreak, you can still get sick from a bad batch so be sure to examine your eggs before you leave the store.

“We always say do not use cracked or leaking eggs because that’s just a potential for cross-contamination for some other bacteria entering in through the shells,” says Kelly.

Kelly says if you’re not headed straight home, put your eggs in a cooler in your car. And when you put them in the fridge, keep the eggs in the carton so you remember when they expire. “Store them in the coolest part of your refrigerator, which is the lower, left-end shelf usually. The door is one of the warmer areas in your refrigerator so we don’t recommend you put them in the little slots.”

Kelly says eggs have 69 nutrients and help your vision and your memory. For more information on the egg recall, including the list of brands involved, go to www.NCegg.org and www.EggSafety.org.