Belgium Confronts Its Largest-Ever Salmonella Cluster

Belgium’s food safety authorities have confirmed the country’s largest recorded outbreak of salmonella, with at least 306 people infected after eating contaminated eggs. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain, known by its French acronym AFSCA, said the true number of cases is likely higher, since many people with mild or no symptoms would never have sought testing.

“Salmonella is relatively common in Belgium, but we never had such a broad cluster with so many people hit,” an agency spokesperson said, adding that no deaths have been reported so far.

Tracing the Source Back to a Flanders Farm

The outbreak has been linked to eggs produced by Laerco, a company based in Geel, in Belgium’s northern Flanders region. AFSCA first detected salmonella at the facility at the end of April, prompting an initial large-scale recall that pulled all eggs from the site off supermarket shelves the following month.

Investigators initially believed the contamination was confined to a single henhouse at the farm. But as new cases kept appearing at a pace authorities did not expect, follow-up laboratory testing turned up the same bacterial strain in a second henhouse. That discovery forced AFSCA to take more drastic action: the entire farm was shut down, its poultry culled, and a second, wider recall issued on 10 August covering any eggs that may have left the facility before the closure.

Millions of Eggs, Multiple Countries

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The scale of distribution is what makes this outbreak particularly difficult to contain. As many as two million potentially contaminated eggs are believed to have been sold before the recalls took hold, moving through several of Belgium’s largest supermarket chains, including Colruyt, Delhaize, Aldi and Carrefour.

The problem did not stop at Belgium’s borders. The precautionary recall has been extended to Luxembourg, where the local health agency issued its own withdrawal notice, and AFSCA has notified food safety counterparts in several other European countries that may have received shipments from the affected farm, including the Netherlands, France, Italy and Portugal.

Consumers who may still have eggs from the affected batches at home are being urged to check the printed codes on the shells — reportedly in the range of 2-BE-1073-01 through 2-BE-1073-04 — and to avoid eating any eggs matching those codes raw or undercooked.

Why Cases Kept Climbing

Health officials say part of what makes this outbreak unusual is not just its scale but its persistence. Despite an initial recall in May, new infections continued to be reported over the following months, which is what eventually led investigators back to the farm for a second round of testing. That pattern suggests contaminated products remained in circulation — whether still on shelves, in restaurant supply chains, or already sitting in household refrigerators — for far longer than the initial recall anticipated.

AFSCA has acknowledged that some contaminated eggs may still be in consumers’ kitchens, which could lead to further cases even after the farm’s closure, particularly given how long eggs are typically stored before use.

What Salmonella Infection Looks Like

Salmonella is a group of bacteria that live naturally in the guts of many farm animals and can be transferred to food products such as eggs during rearing, slaughtering or processing. In humans, infection typically causes salmonellosis, a gastrointestinal illness whose symptoms include diarrhoea, fever and abdominal cramps. Most healthy adults recover within a few days without medical treatment, though the infection can be more severe — and in rare cases life-threatening — in young children, elderly people and those with weakened immune systems.

Food safety officials emphasise that thoroughly cooking eggs significantly reduces the risk of infection, since heat kills the bacteria. Raw or lightly cooked egg dishes, such as homemade mayonnaise, mousses or soft-boiled eggs, carry a higher risk if the eggs involved are contaminated.

The Response Going Forward

With the farm now closed and its flock culled, AFSCA’s immediate focus has shifted to tracking down any remaining stock in the supply chain and monitoring whether new cases continue to emerge in the coming weeks. Public health officials in the affected neighbouring countries are also watching closely for any signs that the outbreak has spread beyond Belgium’s borders in meaningful numbers.

For now, Belgian authorities are treating the episode as a cautionary case study in how quickly a contamination at a single farm can ripple across supermarket shelves and national borders before it is fully contained — and how long the consequences can linger even after the source has been shut down.