Grocers and retailers rushed to pull products containing iceberg lettuce off shelves on Saturday, as Taylor Farms issued a recall, notifying customers that lettuce shipped to 27 states may have been contaminated.
The largest produce company in the country is under scrutiny after federal officials linked the company’s Mexico plant to an outbreak of illness from cyclospora, a parasite that can cause severe illness, including vomiting, cramping and explosive diarrhea.
The investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially tied the parasite to lettuce that Taylor Farms shipped to Taco Bell in five states earlier this week. However, the recall notice by Taylor Farms late Friday suggested far broader distribution of potentially contaminated greens.
The recall may not end the current problems for Taylor Farms.
Late Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration said a sample of iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico tested positive for cyclospora during “targeted import surveillance.” The agency said that Taylor Farms had confirmed that the positive product was not part of the current recall, and that the company was trying to identify whether the new implicated lot had made it to restaurants or consumers’ homes.
Taylor Farms did not respond to an email seeking comment Saturday, but on Friday said it had “suspended distribution of iceberg lettuce from Central Mexico.”
The recalled products were shipped starting June 29 through as recently as Thursday and have expiration dates through Aug. 3. Taylor Farms said on social media that none of its own Taylor Farms-branded salad kits were associated with the outbreak.
Instead, much of the product being recalled was sold in larger bags to food service operations like restaurants. Many of the bags were blended with romaine.
States listed as part of the recall include Florida, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina and Missouri. The recall notice does not list California or New York, but it is unclear if Taylor Farms supplied lettuce to companies in states affected by the recall and then those companies distributed the lettuce widely.
The size and scale of the outbreak — possibly affecting more than 5,000 individuals in at least 34 states — resulted in widespread panic among consumers this week. The uncertainty was fueled, in part, by government investigators racing to pinpoint the source.
But consumer confusion around where their lettuce comes from is also a consequence of a nontransparent food system. Taylor Farms — like other food producers — does not disclose which grocery stores or restaurants it distributes leafy greens or other vegetables to.
Even the company’s recall notice was vague. Rather than provide the names of the distributors or stores that had received the lettuce being recalled, Taylor Farms used codes.
Still, by midday Saturday, a number of companies that had been contacted said they were pulling the affected product from their supply chains or stores.
The retail giant Walmart said it had removed some lettuce under its Marketside brand, even though there was no indication the products were affected.
“Out of an abundance of caution, customers who purchased these products should not consume them and should discard them or return them to their local Walmart store for a full refund,” the company said.
(The F.D.A. did flag Walmart’s Marketside products in its update late Saturday afternoon.)
Sysco, the nation’s largest food distributor, said it had withdrawn all iceberg lettuce products from Mexico at the request of Taylor Farms.
“We will continue to actively monitor the situation and work with regulators as needed,” Sysco said, adding that it stopped selling and distributing those Taylor Farms products on Thursday.
US Foods, another large food distributor, said it had also notified affected customers about the recall on Friday, a spokeswoman said in an email.
Taco Bell, which moved quickly this week to pull lettuce from restaurants in some states, said in a statement Saturday afternoon that it had adjusted its supply chain and “within 72 hours had voluntarily removed all affected Taylor Farms lettuce” from every Taco Bell restaurant in the country.
“Clearly, this is a nationwide industrywide issue, not a Taco Bell-specific issue,” the statement read. “We hope that other members of the industry are taking the same degree of immediate action and accountability for the consumer as we have.”
In fact, it is likely other distributors and restaurants have been affected by the recall and may not come forward.
Although information came out later Saturday, in the morning the F.D.A. said on its website that Taylor Farms “has not publicly provided distribution information or a list of customers who received the product that was voluntarily removed from the market.”
F.D.A. regulations do not require the company to do so, a source of frustration for food safety leaders.
“Food safety advocates have urged F.D.A. over the years to make this a requirement,” said Sandra B. Eskin, chief executive of Stop Foodborne Illness, an advocacy group. “Without this essential information, a recall is not going to be effective.”
She added: “The whole point is to quickly identify the product and make sure no one else eats it.”
While there may be thousands of cases, the C.D.C. has officially confirmed that at least 1,645 people have fallen ill and 141 have been hospitalized, most of them after consuming the lettuce sent to Taco Bell. The C.D.C. made that determination through scientific detective work, starting with case reports about people who fell ill and tracking back to a common food source. The case count is likely to rise, as the C.D.C. factors in the scope of the recall.
The United States is on track to have more cyclospora cases in 2026 than in any previous year. The agency said it was investigating more than 5,100 additional illnesses that may have been caused by the parasite, which is transmitted through food or water contaminated with feces.
On Thursday evening, Taylor Farms executives met with the White House and the Food and Drug Administration to try to distance the company from the outbreak and air concerns about the official investigations into the outbreak.
On Friday, the company said the information that the F.D.A. had presented led the company to remove its iceberg lettuce from the market. The company said its Mexican processing plant Taylor Farms de Mexico in Guanajuato was voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico.
The F.D.A. is planning to inspect the Guanajuato facility in coming days to determine how the cyclospora parasite got on the lettuce and track it through the supply chain.
Alice Callahan contributed reporting.
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