A recall covering roughly 1.6 million dozen eggs remains in effect at the FDA’s highest risk level, and cartons tied to it could still be sitting in refrigerators across Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico and Mississippi. The eggs, sold under the Kroger and Simple Truth store brands along with several smaller regional labels, carry a possible Salmonella Enteritidis contamination that federal health officials have now linked to an active multistate outbreak.
A Class I Status That Is Still Active
The recall traces back to Midwest Poultry Services, L.P., which pulled 1,589,577 dozen white and brown cage-free shell eggs produced at two of its Texas farms after routine environmental monitoring turned up the potential for Salmonella Enteritidis contamination. The FDA subsequently classified the action as Class I, its most serious designation, reserved for situations where exposure to the product could cause serious health consequences or death. That status has not been lifted or downgraded as of this week.
Class I is not a label the FDA applies lightly. It sits above the more common Class II and Class III recalls, and it signals that the agency views the contamination risk as significant enough to warrant the highest level of public attention, even for a shelf-stable-seeming product like eggs already sold weeks ago. The FDA’s company announcement page for the recall remains live and unchanged since it was first posted.
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Which Cartons Are Actually Covered
The recall isn’t limited to Kroger and Simple Truth. It also covers Brookshire’s, Country Morning and Sunups store-brand eggs, along with unbranded bulk cartons sold to foodservice accounts. The affected eggs were produced between June 6 and July 3, 2026, and carry sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and August 17, 2026, which means the freshest recalled cartons have already passed their printed date. That doesn’t make checking a carton pointless, since eggs are commonly kept past their printed date, and any carton matching the recall’s plant codes should be discarded or returned regardless of whether the date has passed.
Households can identify a recalled carton by the plant code printed alongside the date on the side of the package: codes P-1950 or 0840962, paired with a Julian date between 157 and 184. Kroger, Simple Truth, Brookshire’s, Country Morning and Sunups cartons across a range of sizes, from a half-dozen up to 60-count bulk packs, all carry the same code format.
The Outbreak Behind the Recall
The FDA’s own outbreak investigation page and the CDC’s tracking page for the shell-egg outbreak both link this recall to a genuine ongoing illness cluster, not just a precautionary pull. As of the most recent public reporting, 98 people across 17 states have been confirmed infected with the outbreak strain, and 26 of those cases required hospitalization. No deaths have been reported. Salmonella infections typically bring fever, diarrhea, nausea and abdominal cramping within a few days of exposure, and the illness can be more severe in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems.
Midwest Poultry Services has said it is not currently distributing fresh eggs produced on the two Texas farms tied to the contamination while the investigation continues, which is part of why the recall’s status remains open rather than resolved.
The case count tells a more complicated story than the recall alone suggests. Illnesses linked to the outbreak strain date back to November 21, 2025, months before the recalled eggs were even produced between June 6 and July 3, 2026, with the most recent reported illness onset on June 30, 2026. Of 44 ill people investigators were able to interview in detail, 40 of them, or 91 percent, reported eating eggs before getting sick. FDA’s own traceback investigation identified Midwest Poultry Services as a common source, but the agency has been explicit that this producer “does not account for all the illnesses in this outbreak,” and it says additional investigation is ongoing to identify other sources.
The states with confirmed illnesses are also broader than the six-state distribution list for the recalled cartons themselves. CDC’s own case tracking shows infections confirmed in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia, a 17-state spread far wider than the Arkansas-Louisiana-Mississippi-New Mexico-Oklahoma-Texas footprint where the recalled Kroger and Simple Truth cartons were actually sold. That mismatch is consistent with FDA’s own acknowledgment that other, still-unidentified sources may be contributing to the same outbreak strain alongside the eggs already pulled from shelves.
What to Do With a Carton in the Refrigerator
Anyone with eggs matching the covered brands and code range should not eat them. The FDA’s guidance is to return the carton to the store where it was purchased for a full refund rather than simply throwing it away, though discarding it is also an acceptable option if a return isn’t practical. Surfaces and containers that touched a recalled carton, including egg cartons stored in a refrigerator door or bin alongside other food, are worth wiping down with hot, soapy water, since Salmonella can spread from contaminated shells to nearby surfaces.
Anyone who ate eggs matching this recall and later developed a fever, prolonged diarrhea or symptoms severe enough to cause dehydration should contact a healthcare provider and mention the exposure, since a stool test can confirm whether it matches the outbreak strain.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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