SAFE AND SIMPLE

If Wilton Simpson were a football coach - no giggling; as a teenage tough-guy free safety, Simpson was pretty much the John Lynch of the 1983 Pasco Pirates state semifinalists - he would be Urban Meyer. Minus the heart condition.

That is, like the Gators' famously dogged taskmaster, "We leave nothing to chance."

Nonetheless, it was understandable, when news broke recently that more than 1,200 unsuspecting citizens had been sickened by salmonella-laced eggs this summer, Simpson the Stringent joined his egg-harvesting colleagues in their collective gasp.

"It was a bad day for egg farmers," Simpson says. "No question about it."

As information accumulated, however, the head of Simpson Farms, overseer of roughly 1 million white Hyline layers - tall, lean and tough, these gals are the Sheryl Swoopes of poultry - was able to dismiss the Great Midwest Egg Panic as an utterly localized event.

The emerging culprit, according to FDA tests, appears to be a tainted meat-and-bone-meal additive designed to boost the protein content in eggs produced by the two offending Iowa farms. The supplement is one Simpson Farms never has and never will use, says the boss.

But while experts pursued the evidence, it's not like Simpson didn't run his operation's fail-safe systems through his head a couple of times. Who wouldn't? As Bob Leclerc, a safety officer at Maine's largest egg farm recently told the Boston Globe, "Salmonella is the fear of every egg producer. You can't see it, you can't taste it and you can't smell it."

Critics weigh in

Meanwhile, opponents of traditional industrial egg operations seized the opportunity to slam, once again, practices they consider inhumane and worrisome, if not dangerous.

The Humane Society of the United States released an ad that decries the lifelong caging of hens as cruel as well as an inducement to salmonella. Arguing on behalf of cage-free operations, author John Robbins ("The New Good Life: Diet for a New America") urges egg-eaters to reject "concentration camp chickens," calling it "an ethical and health imperative."

Tampa blogger Gail Eggeman even slammed the state-mandated practice of washing industrially produced eggs with a chlorine solution, claiming it removes the "healthy protection" provided by nature.

For his part, Simpson concedes the human predisposition for anthropomorphizing animals, especially those consigned to our care. But at 44, with 32 years in egg farming - most of the first dozen at his father's elbow - Simpson has gained a fair appreciation for what works, a lesson reinforced by legendary Pasco High football coach Don Herndon.

"The first day coach Herndon comes into the huddle he says, 'You guys are so hopeless, we're going to have to run the KISS offense," Simpson recalls. "None of us had ever heard of that before." But they figured it out: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The lesson abides at Simpson Farms, where computers, redundancies and a reliable staff aspire to create "what works": putting eggs that are safe, clean, abundant and inexpensive in the largest possible number of grocery stores.

The best, perhaps only, way to achieve those goals is by constantly monitoring the hens' level of contentment, which begins with tracking levels of production. Simpson's data-crunchers know how many eggs to expect on any given day - that number being right around 750,000. Dips trigger swift investigations, including an alert to Simpson's on-call veterinarian.

Aggressive self-policing

Simpson Farms operates eight lengthy hen barns, each containing about 110,000 layers housed in stacked wire cages about the size of a file drawer. Feed - a corn and soybean blend - and water are readily available, producing an unexpectedly soothing clucking din that suggests hens oddly chipper in their singular occupation, whatever animal rights activists think.

The barns' sloping roofs have 5-foot overhangs, the better to keep out rain and direct sunlight. Pigtail fluorescent lights illuminate the rows, and circulation is controlled by fans linked to temperature-monitoring computers.

Computers also oversee the conveyor operation - from washers to sizers to graders to packers. After that, Simpson's team of 47 employees (all earning over minimum wage, with access to health insurance and 401(k)s) takes over.

One key to success: the expedience with which boxed eggs get into the refrigeration room, kept at a constant 45 degrees, a temperature at which salmonella cannot grow, Purdue University food scientist Kevin Keener tells the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier. Keener's preference, however, is for quick-cooling systems - perhaps the only safety doodad Simpson Farms doesn't have.

Still, he's confident about the product that goes out his door, even as he roots for a swift resolution to the disruption in the Midwest. "The best thing that can happen is for the federal government to trace the problem to its source, and eliminate it," he says, before adding an immediate revision. "Actually, the very best thing would be if the farmer was able to identify the source."

The implication is clear. Although Simpson concedes the value of an on-site inspector from the USDA as a "third-party verification" of his farm's quality-control systems, Americans' confidence in their food supply is strengthened when commercial farmers practice rigorous self-discipline.

Even so, Simpson frets the creeping appetite for legislatively mandated cage-free standards, as have been adopted in California and Michigan. Refitting would be astonishingly expensive, and would reduce the number of hens housed in the same space.

Those who regard this as a social benefit may be prepared to reach for their wallets - cage-free eggs typically top $3.50 per dozen, roughly triple the industry standard - but what's their claim on the budgets of middle- and lower-class families for whom inexpensive eggs represent a substantial bang for the grocery buck?

Knock wood, says Simpson, a sensible CEO who (a) regularly dines on his own product and (b) has made (and spread) his fortune attempting to do the right thing. But in this summer of salmonella, the inattentiveness of a (so-far undetermined) few has delivered just what edgy opportunists need: an alarmed audience and an opportunity to squawk.