LANSING | Headquartered in a nondescript food manufacturing facility bordering Interstate 80-94, National Pasteurized Eggs LLC puts up to 10 million eggs a month through a process that kills bacteria, including salmonella.

Privately held NPE has invested between $20 million and $30 million in its facility, process, patents, technology, testing and studies to produce eggs that it says are risk-free, even eaten raw. Its pasteurization method makes the eggs safe to eat uncooked in meringue, Caesar dressing, mayonnaise, cookie dough and other dishes, or while the yolk remains runny, such as when they're cooked sunny-side up or over-easy.

With its product growing in popularity because of the increasing global concern about food-borne illness, the company's output has increased tenfold in the past four years, going from 10 million eggs in 2003 to 100 million in 2006, said company President Gregory West.

"We expect our business to double this year," he said.

The company's annual revenue currently is under $25 million, "but won't stay that way for long," West said.

The company's pasteurization process is patented in the United States and worldwide, and NPE currently is in talks to license the process to companies in Europe, Japan, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East, West said.

The eggs meet the Model Food Code jointly developed by the Federal Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food Safety Inspection Service. They also have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

"It's evident that we're filling a need," said West, who was brought in to create, build and oversee the company's marketing and sales four years ago.

He claims that from the beginning his -- and the company's -- most difficult challenge has been "making consumers aware the eggs exist."

"They didn't know they have a safe option," said West, of Hawthorne Woods, Ill. "Many people still don't know."

Incorporated in 2001, the company, 2960 Bernice Road, employs some 37 workers in its processing plant, and about 13 others in administration, marketing and sales. It currently uses two-thirds of the 60,000-square-foot plant, which formerly was a distribution center for Dutch Farms, but has plans to triple its production capacity to meet its sales growth.

Sitting upright in open containers, 30 eggs to a batch, NPE's eggs travel on conveyor belts though a maze of machinery that takes them through a hour-long dip in a hot water tank where the pasteurization process occurs using a method that doesn't cook the eggs.

"There are pores in the shell and as long as the heat can pass through, the eggs don't get cooked," West said, during a tour of the facility where workers and visitors carefully follow sanitation codes. Although West's explanation isn't specifically scientific, the pasteurization process is.

The in-shell egg pasteurization procedure was developed by James P. Cox in the late 1980s and patented by him in 1990. A year later, Cox licensed the patent to L. John Davidson, who founded Davidson's Pasteurized Eggs and incorporated in it 2001.

Today, Davidson's eggs are processed by DPE, which has a seven-member board, and a group of private investors that includes individuals, an equity group, and a major Chicago construction company. The company has contracts with poultry farms in Indiana and Michigan, including Dutch Farms, to purchase U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected grade AA eggs.

During a pasteurization procedure, which the company vigilantly guards, eggs are given an approximately hour-long Jacuzzi-style bath, where the pasteurization process occurs. They then are cooled, dried, covered with wax to prevent any contamination, and packed either on trays of 30 for food service use in restaurants, schools, nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities, or in cartons of 12 for retail sale both locally and nationally. The eggs are sold in 30 states, among them Indiana and Illinois.

They are available locally at Strack & Van Til's, WiseWay, Jewel and Walt's under the Davidson's Safest Choice retail brand. Between 75 percent to 80 percent of the eggs are sold wholesale to food service providers, under the Whole Some Farms or Sysco Corp. labels. They also can be ordered on the company's Web site, www.safeeggs.com

"Once they know about us, it's a no-brainer," West said. "They can be used in any application without worry."