What to Know About Taylor Farms Amid Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

Taylor Farms, a Taco Bell lettuce provider, has been linked to a five-state cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Taylor Farms, based by Bruce Taylor and several other companions in 1995, is a California-based recent produce firm that has grown right into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with greater than 24,000 staff and 22 manufacturing places throughout North America.

The privately held firm provides packaged salads, fresh-cut greens, meal kits, and different ready meals to grocery stores, eating places, and food-service clients. Its merchandise have additionally been related to earlier foodborne sickness investigations, together with outbreaks involving salad combine and onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers.

Federal officers have linked shredded iceberg lettuce served at some Taco Bell eating places to a cyclosporiasis outbreak that has sickened greater than 1,600 individuals throughout 5 states.

Taylor Farms didn’t instantly reply on to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.

The corporate issued a public statement on Friday saying that it was “deeply involved” for many who turned in poor health and that Taylor Farms de Mexico was voluntarily eradicating all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the US market.

The corporate added that no Taylor Farms-branded salads or salad kits have been related to the outbreak and that its branded salad kits don’t include iceberg lettuce.

This is what to learn about Taylor Farms, its founder, its rise within the produce business, and different main moments in its historical past.

Taylor Farms traces its origins to Salinas, California, in 1995.

During a break in the fog, afternoon sunlight shines on the historic city center of downtown Salinas, California, USA. — The corporate was based in Salinas, California, the place it’s headquartered.

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The corporate was based in 1995 within the Salinas Valley of California — typically nicknamed the Salad Bowl of America for its fertile farmland — by Bruce Taylor, whose father and grandfather had additionally labored within the recent produce business.

Greater than 30 years later, Taylor stays the chairman and CEO of the corporate.

Farmland in Northern California stock photo — Taylor Farms’ rising operations are concentrated within the Salinas Valley and the Yuma area.

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Earlier than founding Taylor Farms with a gaggle of companions, Taylor additionally served as CEO of Recent Specific, a recent produce model later acquired by Chiquita Manufacturers Worldwide.

Taylor nonetheless serves because the chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms.

Taylor Farms is a multibillion-dollar firm with greater than 24,000 staff.

Packages of Taylor Farms salad greens are displayed at a Safeway store on July 16, 2026 in Kings Beach, California. Federal health officials are investigating whether shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by California-based Taylor Farms was the source of a nationwide Cyclospora outbreak that has sickened more than 1,600 people in 34 states, though no definitive link has been confirmed. — Taylor Farms provides 265 million servings of recent produce throughout North America every week.

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Taylor Farms is a $7 billion enterprise, in keeping with UC Berkeley, that employs greater than 24,000 individuals and operates 22 manufacturing places throughout North America.

Its retail, ready meals, and meals service divisions produce bagged salads, meal kits, fresh-cut greens, and different ready-to-eat meals.

The corporate and its community of growers present an estimated 265 million servings of recent produce throughout North America every week, the company said.

The corporate helped popularize chopped salad kits and expanded by shopping for different main produce manufacturers.

Taylor Farms launched the primary branded prepackaged chopped salads in 2012, per UC Berkeley.

The corporate later continued to broaden by acquisitions, together with the natural produce model Earthbound Farm in 2019 and the packaged salad model Eat Good in 2021.

A large fireplace broken Taylor Farms’ flagship Salinas facility in 2022.

Taylor Farms is completing the installation 2MW of solar power at its facility in San Juan Bautista, California, which will be combined with 6MW of fuel cells from Bloom Energy and a 2MW/4MWh battery into a microgrid designed to power the entire 450,000 sq. ft. facility. — The corporate’s different facility in San Juan Bautista, California, was modernized with solar energy panels in 2022.

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In April 2022, a fireplace broke out at Taylor Farms’ flagship facility in Salinas, California, destroying its 60,000-square-foot leafy-greens processing space

The ability was rebuilt shortly after the hearth and reopened a yr later, with a brand new design designed to course of over 15 million kilos of produce weekly.

Taylor Farms has beforehand been linked to main foodborne sickness investigations.

Packages of Taylor Farms salad greens are displayed at a Safeway store on July 16, 2026 in Kings Beach, California. — Taylor Farms merchandise have been the doubtless supply of 2024 E. coli outbreak involving onions utilized in McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.

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In 2013, restaurant-associated Cyclospora sicknesses in Iowa and Nebraska have been linked to salad combine produced by Taylor Farms’ Mexico division. In the course of the multistate outbreak, 631 sicknesses have been reported throughout 25 states, though the CDC decided that the variety of circumstances doubtless represented multiple outbreaks linked to totally different meals sources.

Taylor Farms was additionally linked to an E. coli outbreak in 2024 involving slivered onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders. The corporate voluntarily recalled yellow onions provided to McDonald’s and different food-service clients after 104 individuals have been sickened throughout 14 states, 34 have been hospitalized, and one died.

The FDA recognized the recalled onions because the doubtless supply of the sicknesses.

Federal officers have linked lettuce served at Taco Bell to an outbreak that has sickened greater than 1,600 individuals.

A customer enters a Taco Bell restaurant on July 14, 2026 in La Cañada Flintridge, California. — Federal well being officers linked shredded iceberg lettuce served at a number of the chain’s places in 5 states to greater than 1,600 circumstances of cyclosporiasis.

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The CDC and FDA mentioned shredded iceberg lettuce served at some Taco Bell eating places in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia was contaminated with Cyclospora.

As of July 16, the five-state outbreak included not less than 1,644 confirmed sicknesses, 94 hospitalizations, and no deaths. Not each Taco Bell restaurant within the affected states obtained the implicated lettuce.

The FDA’s traceback investigation recognized a single provider that offered the eating places with iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico. Federal officers didn’t publicly title the provider, however Taylor Farms mentioned FDA traceback pointed to a selected impartial farm affiliated with the corporate.

Taco Bell mentioned it eliminated doubtlessly affected lettuce from eating places in choose states and was indefinitely eradicating the provider’s lettuce from its nationwide provide chain.

On Friday, Taco Bell said in a public assertion that it had accomplished the elimination of all affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its eating places.

Federal investigations into the cyclosporiasis outbreak proceed.

Fresh heads of lettuce are ready to be harvested, in the Salinas Valley of central California. — Investigators are working to find out whether or not doubtlessly contaminated lettuce reached companies past the Taco Bell places already recognized.

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The FDA is investigating whether or not doubtlessly contaminated lettuce from the provider stays in the marketplace and whether or not it was distributed to different eating places, retailers, manufacturers, or companies. Extra states may very well be added to the federal advisory as investigators study extra.

Taylor Farms de Mexico mentioned it was voluntarily eradicating all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the US market. The corporate mentioned its Taylor Farms-branded salad kits don’t include iceberg lettuce.

The CDC can also be investigating different clusters and hundreds of further reported Cyclospora sicknesses that is probably not related to the lettuce served at Taco Bell. Well being officers have warned that the nationwide enhance in circumstances doubtless includes multiple supply.

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