If you raise chicks and you are in the catering business, you need to be extra careful not to cross contaminate the food you serve with salmonella from the chicks you keep.

It’s looking like that’s what happened in North Dakota where an unlicensed caterer linked to three separate incidents of salmonella food poisoning that sickened more than 75 people and hospitalized nine turned out to also be a chicken rancher.

On the second and third weekends in June, Aggie Jennings of rural McLean County, North Dakota catered a family reunion in Wilton, and weddings in Washburn and McClusky. At each event, people were poisoned with salmonella.

North Dakota health officials say Ms. Jennings did not have a catering license, an apparent Class B misdemeanor. As for charging her with legal responsibility for the outbreaks, they are first waiting for laboratory reports.

Food samples from one of the weddings, along with swab and water samples from the Jennings’ home are being tested for salmonella bacteria.   Jennings’ kitchen is not separate from her home, which is required for a catering licenses.

Read about the investigation in the Bismarck Tribune.