(QUINCY MA) – Easter is right around the corner and chances are you will be among the many Americans indulging in chocolate bunnies, jellybeans and dyeing eggs. The Stop & Shop in your town wants to make sure your next Easter egg hunt is a safe one.

“Eggs are an important staple of the Easter holiday, ” said Paulette Thompson, Health and Wellness Manager for Stop & Shop. “Just a few safety precautions can make all the difference.”

Stop & Shop reminds customers that safe food handling should be a priority, especially during the Easter holiday. As people busily prepare and decorate their Easter eggs, Stop & Shop offers the following safety tips to keep consumers aware of the dangers of food-borne illness that are often overlooked during this hectic time.

Egg Tips

Proper refrigeration, cooking and handling should prevent most egg safety problems. Stop & Shop offers some safety steps you can take at home to ensure an “egg-cellent” holiday:

• Don't Eat Raw Eggs
  
• Buy Clean Eggs - At the store, choose Grade A or AA eggs with clean, un-cracked shells. Make sure they've been refrigerated in the store. Don't wash eggs. At the plant, government regulations require that USDA-graded eggs be carefully washed and sanitized using special detergent.

Refrigerate Eggs - Take eggs straight home and store them immediately in a refrigerator set at 40 °F or slightly below. Store them in the grocery carton in the coldest part of the refrigerator and not in the door.

• Use Eggs Within Recommended Times - Use raw shell eggs within 3 to 5 weeks. Hard-boiled eggs will keep refrigerated for 7-10 days. If eggs crack on the way home from the store, break them into a clean container, cover it tightly, and keep refrigerated for use within 2 days.
  
• Handle Eggs Safely - Wash hands, utensils, equipment, and work areas with warm, soapy water before and after contact with eggs. Don't keep eggs -- including Easter eggs -- out of the refrigerator more than 2 hours. Eggs kept at room temperature for more than 2 hours lose moisture and become susceptible to bacterial growth.
  
• Cook Eggs
  Eggs should be cooked thoroughly until yolks are firm. For hard-boiling eggs, cover eggs in a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, cover and then let stand for a half hour.

Now that you’ve properly hard-boiled your eggs, check and make sure there are no cracks. Color only un-cracked eggs. If you want to eat your dyed eggs later, use food coloring or specially made food-grade egg dyes. If eggs crack during dyeing, discard them. Also discard any eggs that have not been refrigerated for more than two hours.

If you are hiding eggs, pick the hiding places carefully. Don’t hide them too far in advance, they should be hidden and found within a two-hour time span. Try to avoid locations where the eggs could come in contact with dirt or animals. Make sure to refrigerate the eggs after they have been found.

Source: American Egg Board, www.aeb.org

About Stop & Shop

Based in Quincy, Massachusetts, Stop & Shop operates 348 stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York and employs more than 57,000 associates.

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company pioneered the superstore concept in New England, opening the first Super Stop & Shop in 1982. The modern Super Stop & Shop averages 65,000 square feet and combines specialty food shops with a broad selection of general merchandise, offering the convenience of one-stop shopping. Stop & Shop stores offer an excellence in perishables, the best variety (52,000 items per superstore on average) and wide aisles in a clean, easy-to-shop environment. Along with the traditional food offerings, Stop & Shop offers many full service departments such as Foods-To-Go, pharmacy, florist, full-service branch banking, bakery, deli, and other services and products such as photo processing, salad bar, bookstore, and small appliances.

Twenty years after opening its first Super Stop & Shop and setting a new standard for one-stop shopping, Stop & Shop raised the bar for customer expectations with their new prototype supermarkets. With new departments offering products such as toys, party goods, home accessories and office supplies, this next generation of superstores offers customers an unprecedented level of one-stop shopping convenience. In early 2002, Stop & Shop partnered with Dunkin’ Donuts, the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chain. Today, Stop & Shop has more than 100 full-service Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in its stores.