A recall involving more than 150,000 pounds of eggs sold in pails for institutional use in 34 states, has caused at least two supermarket chains to issue their own recalls of prepared foods.

Late Wednesday, Minnetonka, Minn.-based Michael Foods announced an egg recall covering 24 production lot dates, up from three announced last week. The recall involves Michael Foods’ 10- and 25-pound pails of eggs in brine — 15,000 pails all together – because of potentional contamination with listeria.

There have been no confirmed reports of illness in connection with the recall by Michael Foods, the nation’s seventh-largest egg producer as ranked by the publication Egg Industry.

The recalled eggs could be carrying Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems. It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths. Healthy individuals can suffer high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

The same listeria strain struck Michael Foods three years ago and also prompted a recall. Listeria monocytogenes was found in bags of hash browns, a discovery that cost the company $2 million.

The Michael recall was initiated after lab tests by a third party revealed that some eggs may have been contaminated. The recall was expanded after the company determined that a specific repair project in a packaging room was the likely source of the potential contamination. Michael Foods said it has corrected the problem.

Doug Powell, a food safety expert at Kansas State University, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune listeria is a relatively common bug, and is tested for “zero tolerance. So you get a lot of recalls without illnesses.”

But when listeriosis strikes, it can be a particularly fatal foodbourne illnesses with a “kill rate” of 20 percent to 30 percent in the people who contract it, Powell said. Last year, a cantaloupe-related listeria outbreak centered on a Colorado farm killed 30 people, one of the deadliest food-related outbreaks in recent years.