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Cyclospora outbreak follows years-long pattern of Taylor Farms deflecting blame
By 
Casey Tolan, 
Yahya Abou-Ghazala, 
Curt Devine, 
Kyung Lah
5 hr ago
PUBLISHED Aug 6, 2026, 6:00 AM ET
Food & healthFederal agenciesMexico
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A truck transports fresh produce after leaving a Taylor Farms location in Doctor Mora, Mexico, on July 24.
Daniel Becerril/Reuters
As health officials pointed to a Mexican processing plant run by Taylor Farms as the source of a parasite sickening Americans, the giant produce company rushed to defend itself.
The company said it recalled produce out of an abundance of caution, but also stressed that its own testing had found no signs of parasites.
That outbreak was in 2013.
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In the aftermath of that case, the company’s CEO and founder, Bruce Taylor, criticized a “culture of fear” about food safety in an interview with CNN in 2015 and argued that America’s food system was “safer than it’s ever been.”
Now, more than a decade later, the same Taylor Farms facility in Mexico is once again linked to a much larger outbreak of the same parasite, cyclospora, which has stricken thousands of Americans and turned “explosive diarrhea” into national buzzwords.
And once again, Taylor Farms has sought to deflect responsibility.
That matches a pattern over the past decade, a CNN investigation found – as Taylor Farms has been tied by health officials to at least fiveoutbreaks of cyclospora and E. coli, the company has regularly downplayed the seriousness of the problems and insisted that it found no evidence its produce was contaminated.
But health experts and advocates say those claims are misleading because it’s rare for tests conducted after reports of illnesses to catch the transient bacteria or parasites that sickened consumers.
“People eat the evidence,” said Bill Marler, an attorney who focuses on food safety cases and has filed dozens of lawsuits against Taylor Farms and other big agricultural companies. “The products that get tested are not the products that people consume.”
Meanwhile,US Food and Drug Administration inspections have flagged sanitation issues at various Taylor Farms locations around the US in recent years, from pooling water that tested positive for listeria at a Colorado plant to equipment not being properly disinfected at a facility in Tennessee.
Bruce Taylor also previously chaired a group that expressed support for the end of a food pathogen monitoring system more than a decade ago, and his company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress in recent years on food regulations.
The cycles of illness and deflection at Taylor Farms illustrate a larger problem in the American food safety system, the experts said, which overwhelmingly relies on companies to self-police the cleanliness of their own produce. The FDA hadn’t sent an inspector to Taylor Farms’ Mexico plant since 2019, and in the first six months of 2026, only five of the company’s more than 168,000 produce shipments from Mexico were physically inspected by FDA officials at the US border, according to data reviewed by CNN.
Taylor Farms is one of the nation’s biggest vegetable producers, and its Mexican subsidiaries are the source of more shipments of vegetable and salad products into the US than any other single manufacturer in the world, FDA import data shows.
Some experts who spoke with CNN said the company had made significant efforts in recent years to improve safety and cleaning conditions in its Mexico operations. Others noted that that the scale of its operations means it’s more likely than smaller rivals to be associated with periodic health issues.
In a statement, a Taylor Farms spokesperson said that the company invested hundreds of millions of dollars a year in food safety efforts and went above and beyond industry standards and legal requirements.
“Taylor Farms has operated for more than 30 years and produces billions of servings of safe, high-quality fresh produce annually,” the spokesperson said. “Throughout, the company has been at the forefront of advances in food safety. We have cooperated fully with regulators in any instance where food safety concerns were raised, taking corrective action where warranted.”
Still, food safety advocates who’ve followed the latest cyclospora outbreak say they’re feeling a sense of déjà vu — and argue that both corporate giants like Taylor and federal government agencies tasked with safeguarding the nation’s food system have missed opportunities to learn from past outbreaks and better protect Americans’ health.
Frank Yiannas, a former FDA deputy commissioner for food policy and response, said that the scale of the outbreak should be an alarm bell for America’s food industry and government agencies.
“We need to rethink our approaches,” Yiannas said. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
Outsourcing safety
As more and more produce for American markets has been grown overseas in recent decades, the US government has largely outsourced safety oversight to the companies farming and selling it.
For years, the FDA has fallen far short on meeting its modest annual goals for foreign food facility inspections, the US Government Accountability Office has found, as the agency struggled to hire and train inspectors. And when the FDA actually has done overseas visits, it has historically given facilities weeks of advance warning.
For a time, the feds tested produce on the US end, before it reached consumers. Starting in 2001,the US Department of Agriculture ran a national foodborne pathogen monitoring program that sampledfruits and vegetables around the nation, looking forsalmonella, listeria, shigella, and E. coli, although not cyclospora.
But that program was killed in 2012 amid heavy pushback from the produce industry, which argued it led to unnecessary recalls and cost farmers too much. Several agricultural trade groups where Taylor Farms executives served in leadership positions over the years had raised concerns about the program or lobbied for it to be defunded.
That left even more responsibility in the hands of companies like Taylor Farms.
A sign for the Food and Drug Administration is seen outside of the agency's headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, in July 2020.
Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images/File
The next year,health authorities linked a cyclospora outbreak in part to Taylor Farms, tracing it back to the same central Mexico facility implicated in this year’s outbreak.
An FDA investigation of the Mexican location and surrounding farms in response to that 2013outbreak found the facility was washing salad mix components “in recycled wash water” that could “create the potential for cross contamination and spread of” cyclospora, and noted that some employee hand-washing facilities “do not appear to be of sanitary design.” The agency recommended the facility reevaluate its procedures, but did not conclusively find a cause for the outbreak.
In the beginning of a pattern that would repeat for the next decade, Taylor Farms leaders pushed back on those FDA findings. Bruce Taylor told CNN at the time that “all our tests have been negative, and we have no evidence of cyclospora in our product.”
Two years later, another significant outbreak was traced back to the company.
Testing by the Montana Public Health Laboratory indicated the presence of E. coli in a Taylor Farms celery-and-onion mix, and linked it to an outbreak that had hospitalized multiple people. Taylor Farms issued a recall, but Bruce Taylor again cast doubt on the findings, telling the Monterey Herald newspaper that “it looks like a false alarm.”
Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor in March 2017.
Taylor Farms Foodservice
The FDA could not confirm the specific ingredient that caused the outbreak, but later said a Costco product that included Taylor Farms produce was a “likely source.”
In the fall of 2024, another major E. coli outbreak that led to 104 cases across 14 states, killing one person, was linked to onions supplied to McDonald’s stores by Taylor Farms.
The company initiated a recall, but also said in a statement that its testing had “found no traces of E. coli.”
A former senior food official at the FDA, who asked not to be named to discuss details that aren’t public, described that FDA investigation as a “slam dunk” with strong evidence making it clear that the onions came from Taylor Farms. The company “went to great lengths” to try to keep the FDA from publicly naming it in its communications about the outbreak, arguing unsuccessfully that the agency’s evidence wasn’t solid enough, the official said.
An FDA inspection of the Taylor Farms facility in Colorado associated with the contaminated onions found violations and noted “numerous areas” that could “support pathogenic growth on various food contact surfaces,” an inspector wrote.
In a statement reacting to that report, Taylor Farms said it had taken corrective actions and added that it was “confident” in its food safety processes.
That same year, another E. coli outbreak sickened 89 people across 15 states, resulting in dozens of hospitalizations and one death. The outbreak wasultimately traced back to romaine lettuce, and the FDA closed its investigation last year without publicly identifying the grower or supplier involved.
But the FDA internally concluded that Taylor Farms had “supplied all the romaine lettuce that would have been available at all points of sale” relevant to the outbreak, according to a report from the agency obtained by lawyers for a victim who contracted E. coli and later sued the company after spending weeks in the hospital.
The internal FDA report noted Taylor Farms said its own analysis did not find connections to the outbreak and that the company had “no concerns” about the farm that the FDA had linked to the pathogen. Samples investigators took at the farm came back negative.
In a court filing responding to the victim’s lawsuit, which is ongoing, Taylor Farms denied the allegations.
In the statement to CNN, a Taylor Farms spokesperson did not specifically address any of the previous outbreaks, but said that “historical results feed forward into ongoing risk modeling,” and noted that “water sources are tested for indicator organisms.”
A massive new outbreak
Those previous outbreaks, which infected dozens or a few hundred people, pale in comparison to this year’s cyclospora disaster, which has sickened more than 22,000 across a huge swath of the country. While multiple clusters are still under investigation by the FDA and CDC, more than 6,000 confirmed cases have been connected to Taylor Farms.
Where the outbreak is linked
Where the outbreak is linked
15 states, where people have reported exposure, are part of a multi-state outbreak of cyclosporiasis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
US map highlighting the 15 states that are part of a multi-state outbreak of cyclosporiasis since May 1, 2026.
KSKSNENEOKOKMOMOMIMIILILIAIAARARNCNCPAPAOHOHKYKYININWVWVNHNH
Notes: Data as of August 5, 2026. Data does not include cases acquired outside of the US.
Source: US Centers for Disease Control and PreventionGraphic:Rhyannon Bartlett-Imadegawa, CNN
Marler called it “by far the largest foodborne illness outbreak that we’ve had in 30 years.” This week, two people in Michigan with significant underlying health conditions died in connection with the outbreak, health officials said.
After health officials traced the outbreak to lettuce from Taylor Farms’ central Mexico location, the company missed a federal deadline to recall lettuce that had been distributed to stores and restaurants, Bloomberg News reported.
When it did issue the recall the following day , the company described it as voluntary and initially said that “no Taylor Farms branded salads or kits are associated with this outbreak.” It only later issued a broader list of implicated products.
A customer reaches for Taylor Farms bagged salads for sale at a grocery store in Hercules, California, on July 17.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
That messaging was further complicated on July 18, when the FDA said testing at the US border found cyclospora on another Taylor Farms lettuce product that hadn’t been recalled – but then, the next day, said that test was a false positive.
Taylor Farms claimed the FDA had “apologized” for the error – a claim the agency denied – and reiterated that “there are no confirmed positive” tests showing cyclospora on its produce. After the FDA objected, the company later deleted a social media post about the purported apology.
Taylor Farms’ focus on the false positive created a mistaken impression that the company wasn’t actually linked to the outbreak, Marler said.
“I think that’s kind of what Taylor Farms’ PR people wanted, to throw a little shade and a little doubt,” he said. “Companies want to spin and not get bad news, and get out of the news cycle as quickly as they can, so they can get back to selling and doing what they do.”
After working on past Taylor Farms outbreaks where they’d made similar statements, this surge of cyclospora cases has felt like “déjà vu all over again,” Marler said.
A CDC photo taken through a microscope shows cyclospora in a stool sample.
CDC/AP/File
The company’s interactions with federal agencies have sparked scrutiny over its political donations, including $1 million it gave last year to MAGA Inc., President Donald Trump’s Super PAC, according to Federal Election Commission records. Bruce Taylor told Forbes last month that the donation “earned me a seat at a dinner” to discuss the negative impact of tariffs on his business.
As federal health officials pushed the company to issue a recall last month, Taylor Farms representatives talked with White House officials about what a company spokesperson described as “shortfalls in the FDA and CDC’s outbreak response process.” The call was facilitated by Trent Morse, the former deputy director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who left the Trump administration last year to start his own lobbying firm that is now working for Taylor Farms, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In a letter to Bruce Taylor last week, Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, said that his company’s actions suggested it may have “attempted to leverage political donations and connections inside the Trump Administration to influence the scope, scale, and findings of FDA’s investigation.” The company’s public communications had appeared to obfuscate its role in the crisis and “mislead consumers,” Garcia added.
The Taylor Farms spokesperson said that during the current cyclospora outbreak and recall, “we have acted voluntarily, moved more broadly than required, and will continue to be transparent as more information becomes available.” The company strongly denied that it had “attempted or received favorable regulatory treatment as a result of political contributions or any other improper influence,” they added.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “any notion that the White House or Trump administration would ever compromise on the health and safety of the American people is absolutely false.”
Some experts said that Taylor Farms had made notable investments in health research and food sanitation over the years. Keith Schneider, a professor of food safety at the University of Florida, said Taylor Farms is in part “a victim of their own size” because big companies that ship large amounts of produce are more likely to be connected to health issues.
Trevor Suslow, a food safety expert working as a consultant for Taylor Farms to investigate the source of the current cyclospora outbreak, argued that the company has “been very open with their research findings, with their data collection, with their analysis, bringing in multiple experts to really take an objective view of what’s going on.”
“They’re not cavalier about this,” he said. “They’re not indifferent to the seriousness of what’s going on – they want to understand if they have a role, how did it happen, how do you prevent it.”
He added that he would have no issue eating a bag of Taylor Farms lettuce today.
Federal oversight shortfalls
While experts said that the responsibility to ensure food safety lies with the produce industry, they argued that the federal government could do more to protect consumers.
In the first six months of 2026, FDA inspectors have completed at least 49 inspections of “Foodborne Biological Hazards” at facilities in Mexico, according to FDA data – on pace or above previous years.
But despite the massive amount of produce being shipped to the US from Taylor Farms’ central Mexican operation, its facility there hadn’t been inspected by the FDA in seven years. The facility in the Mexican state of Guanajuato received no citations after its last inspection.
Wendy Johnecheck, an extension professor of food safety at the University of New Hampshire, conducted that 2019 inspection, according to public records. In an interview, she declined to comment on Taylor Farms or the inspection, but speaking generally, said that there was a wide range of sanitation practices and technology in farms around Mexico.
“You’ll see farms that have amazing infrastructure, almost militaristic with micro labs, expertise beyond 98% of our farms in the US. And then you’ll have the same sort of farm with basic food safety systems in place,” Johnecheck said. “There is a pretty broad variety.”
Trucks at a Taylor Farms facility in Salinas, California, on July 17.
Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
The next step in the production chain where the government could detect problematic food is when it reaches the US border. But only a tiny fraction of food imports to the US are actually inspected there.
Most food imports are processed through an automated FDA system that does not involve physical inspections. From 2024 through June 2026, only about 0.1% of shipments of vegetable and salad products from Mexico were inspected by the FDA or refused entry into the US, according to the agency’s import data.
In the first six months of 2026, Taylor Farms’ Mexican operation was the source of more shipments of vegetable and prepared salad products than any other manufacturer. The data doesn’t specify the size of the shipments, so it’s possible that other companies could have imported more products in fewer shipments.
Only five of its more than 160,000 shipments were inspected by the FDA. (A few dozen shipments did not have clear data on their review status.)
There have been isolated incidents of imports from Taylor’s Mexican operation being refused entry into the US by the FDA over failed inspections, including shipments in 2013 and 2020.
Schneider, the University of Florida professor, said that broader testing of food imports doesn’t necessarily make sense because the vast majority of tests will come back negative – and even if more produce was tested, some pathogens like cyclospora can escape detection.
Testing imported food at the border “just doesn’t yield good results unless you test thousands and thousands of samples,” he said. “From an economic standpoint, I don’t think that’s going to protect the public any better than the proactive systems in place.”
Federal funding cuts in the Trump administration have reduced budgets both for food inspections by federal agencies and grants to state and local health departments that conduct the traceback investigations to determine where the outbreaks come from.
Meanwhile, Taylor Farms has paid the law firm Sidley Austin $810,000 to lobby Congress and the USDA about “food regulation” since 2025, according to lobbying disclosures. The disclosures don’t specify what the lobbyists were advocating for or against.
Yiannas, the former FDA official, said it was striking that in most foodborne illness outbreaks, the government is never able to determine the specific cause of how contaminants entered the food. This year’s massive cyclospora outbreak should inspire new investments and innovations in food safety, he argued.
“We don’t do a good job investigating outbreaks once they occur, to go further than just trying to pull product off the shelf,” he said. “If you can’t get to root cause, and you can’t really understand how outbreaks happened, how can you prevent them from occurring again?”
CNN’s John Bonifield, Norma Galeana, Brenda Goodman and Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.
Food & healthFederal agenciesMexico
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