“It kind of feels like David and Goliath…if you know that story. It feels like we’re up against a giant,” Chloe Nevarez said.
That’s how Happy Hens Owner Chloe Nevarez feels after genetic testing from county health officials and the Food and Drug Administration linked salmonella linked two of her Ramona henhouses to a recent outbreak back in July.
The county said the FDA found the strains inside those hen houses matched the strains of 23 people who were infected.
Nevarez said she has been in conversation with the California Department of Public Health, the FDA, and the State Department of Agriculture after the tests were released.
She said they asked her to place a voluntary recall on her eggs and now, she’s questioning how those agencies reached their results.
“To claim guilt on something that we don’t believe is potentially 100 percent accurate is really challenging because like again, we’re incredibly intentional. Again, we do everything with our heart and soul, I would never put a product out to the world that I would not put on my family’s table,” Nevarez said.
Nevarez said the twohen houses that tested positive for salmonella make up about 75 percent of her production.
She said right now, there are no eggs on the market from any affected hen houses in her farm.
Nevarez said she voluntarily decided to hold back all production from those hens for the last two weeks.
“I can say confidently, we are doing everything we can as a company to ensure public health,” she said.
However, Nevarez said this situation has taken a significant hit on her bottom line.
She said Happy Hens has lost more than $70,000 per week in revenue.
Nevarez said the reduced revenue impacts her ability to feed the chickens and sustain egg production.
“We’ve been compliant through this entire process,” Nevarez said.
Nevarez said next week the farm plans to take 2,000 eggs to an independent lab for testing.
For now, she’s awaiting a response from the FDA because they told her that despite seeking results from an outside lab, they may still not allow her eggs to come back.
If that happens, she said she would have to depopulate 10,000 chickens.
“Despite it being a difficult and challenging situation, we find joy and we find peace in the fact that at the end of the day God is in control no matter what happens – whether that means our chickens are depopulated, or whether that means everything is clear and we continue on,” Chloe said.
Nevarez said she expects to receive that information from the FDA on Tuesday.
The outbreak led to 23 people getting sick and seven hospitalizations.