The CDC has linked a five-state cyclosporiasis outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell and warned the public not to eat it, but the agency has not publicly named the supplier.
The agency’s July 16 notice covers Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, though not all locations in those states received the affected lettuce and no recall has been issued.
The FDA’s traceback converged on a single supplier of iceberg lettuce from Mexico; neither agency has publicly named it, but two federal officials identified the supplier as Salinas, Calif.-based Taylor Farms, according to The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The outbreak has sickened more than 1,644 people who ate at Taco Bell, with 94 hospitalizations and no deaths, across illnesses beginning May 13 through July 13, according to the CDC. Those cases are a subset of a larger national picture: 1,645 laboratory-confirmed cyclospora cases across 34 states as of July 13, plus more than 5,100 illnesses still under investigation. 2026 is on track to be the worst cyclospora year on record, according to the Times.
Officials in Michigan, the hardest hit state, analyzed detailed food histories from 190 people who ate at Taco Bell and found 90% had eaten iceberg lettuce. This data helped steer the FDA’s traceback to one grower. Parasitic infections are far harder to link than bacterial ones, and the challenge is compounded by budget cuts and layoffs at the state and local health departments that rely on CDC funding for outbreak response.
The scale is landing inside hospitals. Michigan systems have pulled leafy greens from cafeterias during the outbreak, and testing labs have strained to keep pace because standard workups can miss Cyclospora unless clinicians specifically order stool studies for it.
Symptoms — watery diarrhea, cramping, fatigue and weight loss — typically begin days to weeks after exposure and can persist for a month without the antibiotic treatment the infection requires.
Taylor Farms is one of the country’s largest fresh-produce suppliers at roughly $7 billion in annual revenue. Taco Bell said it is voluntarily pulling the lettuce and removing that supplier nationwide.
Becker’s has reached out to Taylor Farms and will update this story if more information becomes available.
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