Meet Jack DeCoster: The Man Behind the Salmonella Outbreak

I'd like to introduce you to Austin "Jack" DeCoster, one seriously bad egg. You may or may not have heard of him — he hasn't garnered quite as much media attention today as Tiger Woods (another arguably bad egg). But I'm betting that DeCoster's company, Wright County Egg, may ring some bells — or perhaps some ambulance sirens.

Wright County Egg is one of two producers responsible for the recent egg recall which was, as of today, up to 550 million eggs. The eggs — which are sold under dozens of private labels including Lucerne, Albertson's, Ralph's, Farm Fresh, and several others — are suspected of carrying salmonella. About 1,300 people already came down with symptoms of salmonella poisoning, and the number is expected to grow over the coming days.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently conducting an investigation into Hillendale Farms and Wright County Egg, the two producers that churned out the half-billion contaminated eggs. It may take awhile before the FDA can pinpoint the exact source of the salmonella. But for Wright County Egg owner DeCoster, this isn't his first brush with law. Nor is it his second. Or third. Or even fourth. In fact, once you crack through DeCoster's shell, turns out his agricultural record is actually pretty rotten.

DeCoster and his unethical farm operations are the very definition of what's wrong with industrial agriculture. According to a story in USA Today, DeCoster first ran into legal troubles in 1994, when he was cited for four separate penalties for his hog farms in Iowa.  Hog waste was stored in lagoons, which would then run off into the water supply. The situation got so out of control that in 2000, DeCoster was deemed an "habitual offender" of water quality laws.

The scandalous dealings don't end there. Grist's Tom Philpott goes on to paint an even uglier picture of DeCoster, depicting various Big Ag operations under his rule. In 1996, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined DeCoster $3.6 million for worker violations. Undocumented workers were handling things like manure and dead chickens with their bare hands, and they were living in trailers littered with roaches and rats. Then in 2002, five undocumented workers were reportedly raped at DeCoster Farms by three former supervisors. DeCoster didn't quit there: Just this past January, his farming operations in Maine were cited with 10 counts of animal abuse.

Environmental citations, and worker violations, and animal abuse — oh my. Looks like a public health crisis was the only feather missing from DeCoster's illustrious cap.

With DeCoster's years of shady dealings and mounting pile of violations, it's truly disheartening that a man like him is allowed to still operate these large-scale farming ventures. If there is a silver lining to this massive salmonella outbreak, let's hope that it's to put bad eggs like him out of business.

Photo credit: NatalieMaynor via Flickr