This is one of those neat factoids that isn’t entirely true.

Japan does wash and refrigerate its eggs, just not all eggs and brands and groceries (it’s not a law).

Refrigerate and unrefrigerated eggs side-by-side Image

Refrigerated eggs Image

Most of the low salmonella incident rate comes from a higher inspection rate of egg producers and, here’s the fun one, a higher rate of raw egg ingestion, leading to faster report and response times for when there is contamination.