More than 19 million eggs are off shelves after Midwest Poultry Services of North Manchester, Indiana, issued a voluntary recall on July 22, 2026, citing possible Salmonella Enteritidis contamination at two of its Texas farms. As of July 24, the FDA and CDC had confirmed 98 illnesses and 26 hospitalizations across 17 states — with Texas accounting for 73 of those cases — in an outbreak investigation that has revealed something more unsettling than a bad batch of eggs: a bacterial strain that resists two commonly used antibiotics.
Which Eggs Are Recalled and Where They Were Sold
The recall covers 1,589,577 dozen white shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs produced between June 6 and July 3, 2026, with sell-by or best-by dates running from July 20 to August 17, 2026. Not every egg from Midwest Poultry Services is affected — only cartons stamped with plant codes P-1950 or 0840962 and a Julian Date between 157 and 184 printed on the side of the carton. If those codes aren’t there, the egg is not part of this recall.
The eggs were distributed to retail and foodservice customers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, though they ended up on shelves as far as Arkansas, New Mexico, and Mississippi. Brand names in the recall include Kroger, Simple Truth, Brookshire’s, Country Morning, and Cal-Maine Sunups — all sold at Kroger and Brookshire Grocery locations. If you bought eggs at a Kroger in Texas or Louisiana in the past several weeks and still have the carton, check those codes now. Midwest Poultry Services is offering a full refund for returned product.
One detail worth flagging: Simple Truth has appeared in at least two major egg recalls — this 2026 recall and the August Egg Company recall of June 2025, when over 1.7 million dozen eggs were pulled in a 79-person, 7-state outbreak. The organic or natural-sounding label is not a safety guarantee; the plant code is.
The Antibiotic Resistance Finding Is the Part That Matters Most
Of the 44 patients interviewed by investigators, 40 reported eating shell eggs in the days before getting sick. Most Salmonella cases resolve on their own. But the CDC flagged something significant in this outbreak: the strain shows predicted nonsusceptibility to ciprofloxacin and resistance to nalidixic acid — two antibiotics that clinicians commonly turn to when a Salmonella infection turns severe enough to require treatment. That does not mean the strain is untreatable, but it does mean doctors may need to run culture and susceptibility tests before prescribing, adding time and complexity to care for patients who deteriorate.
The outbreak’s timeline also complicates the picture. Illnesses began as early as November 21, 2025 — months before the recalled egg lots were even produced (June 6–July 3, 2026). The FDA and CDC have been explicit that Midwest Poultry Services does not account for all 98 cases. Additional, as-yet-unidentified sources are still under investigation. What that means for people who got sick last winter remains an open question.
Three Major Egg Recalls in Two Years: A Pattern, Not a Fluke
It would be convenient to treat each recall as an isolated incident. The data makes that hard. In September 2024, Milo’s Poultry Farms in Wisconsin recalled all egg types after an outbreak sickened 65 people across 9 states. In June 2025, August Egg Company of California pulled over 1.7 million dozen eggs tied to 79 illnesses in 7 states. Now, in mid-2026, Midwest Poultry Services is the third major supplier in two years to trigger a multistate Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak. The FDA and CDC note — as they always do — that official case counts almost certainly understate the true number of illnesses, since most people recover without ever seeing a doctor or submitting a sample for testing.
Midwest Poultry Services did identify the contamination through its own environmental monitoring and shared third-party whole genome sequencing results with the FDA on July 21, 2026 — one day before the recall. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But the fact that the outbreak strain was circulating as early as November 2025 suggests the monitoring caught a late chapter of a longer story. The company has halted fresh egg distribution from its Texas farms while the investigation continues.
- how to tell if eggs are recalled by code
