What to know about Taylor Farms, the Taco Bell lettuce supplier linked to the cyclosporiasis outbreak

The company was founded in 1995 in the Salinas Valley of California — often nicknamed the Salad Bowl of America for its fertile farmland — by Bruce Taylor, whose father and grandfather had also worked in the fresh produce industry.

Before founding Taylor Farms with a group of partners, Taylor also served as CEO of Fresh Express, a fresh produce brand later acquired by Chiquita Brands International.

Taylor still serves as the chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms.

Taylor Farms is a $7 billion enterprise, according to UC Berkeley, that employs more than 24,000 people and operates 22 production locations across North America.

Its retail, prepared foods, and food service divisions produce bagged salads, meal kits, fresh-cut vegetables, and other ready-to-eat foods.

The company and its network of growers provide an estimated 265 million servings of fresh produce across North America each week, the company said.

Taylor Farms introduced the first branded prepackaged chopped salads in 2012, per UC Berkeley.

The company later continued to expand through acquisitions, including the organic produce brand Earthbound Farm in 2019 and the packaged salad brand Eat Smart in 2021.

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

The facility was rebuilt shortly after the fire and reopened a year later, with a new design designed to process over 15 million pounds of produce weekly.

In 2013, restaurant-associated Cyclospora illnesses in Iowa and Nebraska were linked to salad mix produced by Taylor Farms’ Mexico division. During the multistate outbreak, 631 illnesses were reported across 25 states, although the CDC determined that the number of cases likely represented multiple outbreaks linked to different food sources.

Taylor Farms was also linked to an E. coli outbreak in 2024 involving slivered onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders. The company voluntarily recalled yellow onions supplied to McDonald’s and other food-service customers after 104 people were sickened across 14 states, 34 were hospitalized, and one died.

The FDA identified the recalled onions as the likely source of the illnesses.

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

As of July 16, the five-state outbreak included at least 1,644 confirmed illnesses, 94 hospitalizations, and no deaths. Not every Taco Bell restaurant in the affected states received the implicated lettuce.

The FDA’s traceback investigation identified a single supplier that provided the restaurants with iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico. Federal officials did not publicly name the supplier, but Taylor Farms said FDA traceback pointed to a specific independent farm affiliated with the company.

Taco Bell said it removed potentially affected lettuce from restaurants in select states and was indefinitely removing the supplier’s lettuce from its nationwide supply chain.

On Friday, Taco Bell said in a public statement that it had completed the removal of all affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurants.

The FDA is investigating whether potentially contaminated lettuce from the supplier remains on the market and whether it was distributed to other restaurants, retailers, brands, or businesses. Additional states could be added to the federal advisory as investigators learn more.

Taylor Farms de Mexico said it was voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the US market. The company said its Taylor Farms-branded salad kits do not contain iceberg lettuce.

The CDC is also investigating other clusters and thousands of additional reported Cyclospora illnesses that may not be connected to the lettuce served at Taco Bell. Health officials have warned that the nationwide increase in cases likely involves more than one source.