The companies that have recalled more than half a billion eggs following a salmonella outbreak fell short of safety standards at their farms, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told CNN Sunday, adding

"There’s no question these farms involved in the recall were not operating with the standards of practice we consider responsible.”

She said "about 1,000" people have been sickened by a salmonella outbreak that federal regulators have traced back to two Iowa egg producers. One of those companies said Sunday it is "devastated" by the possible connection between its product and salmonella.

Hillandale Farms said it shared "a number of common suppliers" with Wright County Egg, including a company called Quality Egg, which provided feed and young birds.

Both Wright County and Quality Egg are owned by the DeCoster family, which has a string of agribusiness interests in the Midwest and Northeast. Those companies’ records have come under new scrutiny since the recalls were announced earlier this month.

The Washington Post reports that in the past 20 years, according to the public record, the DeCoster family operation, one of the 10 largest egg producers in the country, has withstood a string of reprimands, penalties and complaints about its performance in several states.

In June, for instance, the family agreed to pay a $34,675 fine stemming from allegations of animal cruelty against hens in its 5 million-bird Maine facility. An animal rights group used a hidden camera to document hens suffocating in garbage cans, twirled by their necks , kicked into manure pits to drown and hanging by their feet over conveyer belts.

And today’s USA Today reports that to some experts, the huge recall of potentially contaminated eggs is a testament to how the industry has grown from many small producers to large industrial farms.

The problem, many food safety experts say, is that even as eggs moved to a very intense production method with enormous companies and huge flocks, regulation was almost entirely lacking.

In 1999, President Clinton vowed to increase regulation and wipe out the disease in eggs by 2010. Instead, the industry and FDA delayed the creation of the rules, finally written in 2004.