If you bought eggs at Kroger recently, stop before you make breakfast.
On July 23, 2026, the FDA announced that Kroger supplier Midwest Poultry Services is recalling nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs over potential Salmonella Enteritidis contamination. The recalled eggs were sold at Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana. The recall affects Kroger Large 12, 18 and 60 egg cartons, along with Kroger Extra Large 12 egg cartons, Kroger Medium 12 and 30 egg cartons and Kroger Jumbo 12 egg cartons.
Here's how to check your fridge:
Produced: June 6 – July 3, 2026, at two Texas farms
Sell-by / best-by dates: July 20 – August 17, 2026
Look for: plant code P-1950 or 0840962 with a Julian date between 157 and 184, printed on the side of the carton
If your eggs match: don't eat them. Return them to the store for a full refund, or throw them out.
Salmonella causes fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. For children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems, infections can be severe and sometimes fatal. No illnesses have been reported in this recall yet, and the supplier says it caught the problem through its own environmental monitoring.
The second massive Salmonella egg recall at Kroger in 13 months
Just last summer, Kroger's own Simple Truth brand eggs were pulled in a Salmonella outbreak that sickened 134 people, hospitalized more than 38, and killed one. Now, a year later, millions more eggs are coming off Kroger's shelves for the same pathogen.
Two sprawling Salmonella egg recalls in just over a year is not bad luck. It's a signal that Kroger is systematically failing to safeguard customers from possible harm by sourcing eggs from unsanitary, unreliable suppliers.
The unsanitary egg problem Kroger promised to fix — then didn't
In 2016 and again in 2018, Kroger promised customers it would sell only 100% cage-free eggs by 2025. Then it quietly walked that promise back. Today, most of the eggs on Kroger's shelves still come from hens confined in battery cages: wire enclosures so small the birds can't spread their wings or turn around.
This matters for food safety, not just ethics. Caged hens live packed together above accumulating waste, unable to escape their own filth, in conditions scientists have linked to elevated disease risk. Research finds higher rates of Salmonella contamination in caged flocks compared to cage-free ones.
Food safety experts have warned for years that these industrial cage systems endanger the food supply, and research has found they produce among the lowest-quality eggs on the market. Ten states have banned the production or sale of caged-hen eggs outright; in fact, a quarter of Americans now live in states where it is illegal to sell eggs from these facilities. McDonald's is 100% cage-free. Costco is nearly there.
But Kroger is still selling unsanitary eggs from battery cage facilities.
What investigators found inside Kroger's egg supply chain
Understanding the foundational problem behind Kroger’s recalls requires examining where Kroger’s eggs come from.
In late May 2026, investigators documented conditions inside three major Kroger egg suppliers: Trillium Farms in Croton, Ohio; Automated Egg in North Manchester, Indiana; and Hi-Grade Egg Producers in Manchester, Indiana. Using USDA codes, the eggs from these facilities were traced to Kroger stores across the Midwest including the Kroger located directly across the street from the company's corporate headquarters in Cincinnati.
What investigators documented is hard to read, but shoppers deserve to know:
Hens crammed in cages on top of the rotting carcasses of dead cage-mates
Widespread rodent and insect infestations inside the facilities
Eggs covered in blood and feces
Birds drenched in waste falling from the cages stacked above them
A pit of decaying dead birds inside a building housing live, egg-laying hens
Sick and injured birds left to languish in their cages
Rodents, decomposing animals, and feces-covered eggs are textbook vectors for Salmonella. These are not fringe operations but major suppliers feeding eggs into Kroger stores throughout the Midwest. To be clear, these facilities are not the Texas farms behind this week's recall. But that's the point: from Ohio to Indiana to Texas, the pattern keeps repeating across Kroger's egg supply chain. When this is what Kroger's standard suppliers look like on the inside, an endless slew of recalls is not surprising.
A pattern Kroger can't recall away
This egg recall doesn't stand alone. In just the past year and a half, Kroger shoppers have faced recalls for Listeria in prepared pasta meals tied to a deadly outbreak, glass fragments in Kroger-brand fried rice, Salmonella in Kroger croutons, undeclared allergens, and an FDA warning letter for leaving botulism-risk infant formula on shelves after it was recalled.
Every one of these ends the same way: Kroger issues a statement, shoppers empty their fridges, and nothing about how the company sources and oversees its food actually changes.
Kroger is America's largest traditional grocer. It has every resource to sell clean, safe, responsibly produced food and to keep the promises it made to its own customers about how its eggs are produced. It simply hasn't.
We deserve better. And Kroger deserves to be held accountable.
Check your cartons. Share this with anyone who shops at Kroger in the affected states. If you've had your own experience with recalled, spoiled, or unsafe food at Kroger, tell us your story at KrogerHurtsFamilies.com.
Sources
FDA — Midwest Poultry Services recall notice, Salmonella Enteritidis (Jul 2026)
CBS News — 1.6 million eggs recalled at Kroger and other stores (Jul 23, 2026)
KHOU — Recall details, plant codes, and affected states (Jul 23, 2026)
CBS News & FDA — Simple Truth eggs, Salmonella outbreak (June 2025)
Undercover investigations at three Kroger egg suppliers (May 2026) and press release
Center for Food Safety — Food safety risks of battery cage egg production
Frontiers in Animal Science — Consumer preferences and cage-free transition
