This summer, over 12,000 Americans across 21 states experienced cyclospora illness related to contaminated iceberg lettuce distributed through Taylor Farms, according to the CDC. Virginia, which the Virginia Department of Health says was among the states affected, recorded 242 cyclospora cases through August.
“Media seized upon those two great words: explosive diarrhea,” said Bob Custard, an environmental health consultant who spent 28 years with the Virginia Department of Health. “That made it really dramatic, and you know frankly, the illness does have nasty diarrhea, no question about it, but I wouldn’t describe it as being that much different than a lot of other foodborne illnesses.”
Whenever there are sensational headlines, Custard said, people tend to pay more attention to all recalls.
Trust in food safety is plummeting and recent recalls have put the issue at the top of many people’s minds. While the number of GI illnesses and food recalls has not changed very much, the nature and scope of those illnesses and recalls has, and the public’s perception of food safety has changed with them.
In Virginia, gastrointestinal illnesses accounted for about 10 percent of emergency department and urgent care visits from early August to late October, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s GI Illness Report. That is about equal to the previous year, and the number has been declining since July. The federal Food and Drug Administration classified just under 1,500 food recalls in 2024, and more than 1,550 recalls in 2025. Between January 1, 2026 and October 31, 2026, the FDA classified recalls of 1,246 products.
The number of food recalls has remained relatively steady in recent years, but trends in the industry are posing new challenges to ensuring what ends up on dinner plates is clean and safe to eat.
Regardless of the numbers, Americans have lost a lot of trust in the safety of their food. According to Gallup research, confidence in the safety of food in grocery stores and the government’s ability to ensure food safety have reached new lows. One in 10 respondents in the Gallup poll said they were “not confident at all” that food in grocery stores was safe. Just 47 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the federal government’s ability to ensure food safety.
While public sentiment takes a nosedive, recent food recalls highlight how certain links in the consumer food chain pose particular risks.
“What I worry a lot more about is ready-to-eat products you don’t cook,” Custard said. “There is more potential for there to be contamination at some point along the distribution chain or processing. Personally, I don’t like to buy bagged salad greens.”
This is what happened with the Taylor Farms lettuce. In the FDA’s investigation, agents found two environmental samples in Mexico that tested positive for cyclospora: one from a tank holding wastewater from the Taylor Farms de Mexico processing facility, and one from a drainage ditch at a lettuce grower. The FDA said it could not determine how the contamination happened, but the evidence strongly tied the outbreak to Taylor Farms lettuce. The contamination made it all the way to consumers in Virginia, and even as far out as Michigan, where the outbreak hit hardest. From the farm that grew the lettuce, to the processing facility that shredded and bagged it, to the grocery store that sold it, the contaminant persisted in a great enough abundance to sicken thousands and trigger a significant nationwide recall and international investigation.
The cyclospora outbreak highlights another challenge to the mission of food safety: industry consolidation.
Illnesses related to the Taylor Farms outbreak accounted for more than half of total cyclospora cases confirmed through August, according to the CDC. The company produced roughly 40 percent of all salad kits sold in the United States, according to the research and advocacy group Farm Action.
The FDA recalled 188 individual products in October. The same month, a recall of potentially E. coli-contaminated frozen berries expanded to Trader Joe’s and Walmart, weeks after the FDA declared the outbreak behind it over. Also that month, three companies recalled potentially salmonella-contaminated broccoli seeds for growing sprouts and microgreens sold through several online retailers.
Recalls of products like those are par for the course, Custard said. “It’s really hard to wash a raspberry because it’s got so many nooks and crannies and so some products just cannot be washed very well,” he said. “Some are delicate enough that they don’t hold up well to handling.”
However, a single point of contamination can implicate many products downstream. “That’s why a lot of times when a recall comes out, it will say one brand name first and then there will be updates to it with subsequent recalls if it’s packaged under a different brand name,” said Kelsey Hollomon, the Virginia Department of Health’s foodborne disease epidemiology program manager.
Hollomon said she has sensed a shift in the public attention, especially on social media, but has confidence in the system’s ability to trace and test contaminated products from the national level to the local level.
“We have a very robust food safety system within the US,” she said. “In general, our foods are safe to consume.”
There has been a slight uptick in reported sicknesses over the last few years, Hollomon said, but that could be due to more widespread use of “culture-independent diagnostic tests,” which are faster and easier to use than other methods.
“We have seen an increase, but for the most part, the numbers are pretty steady,” she said.
The future of food safety is still in the air. Custard, the environmental health consultant, said there could be big improvements in labeling to add transparency from farm to facility to grocery store.
Hollomon said she has not noticed much of a difference in the state’s work with federal partners, but acknowledged the potential danger in cuts at the federal level.
Last year, a top FDA food safety official resigned and warned that the firings of dozens of his colleagues were “beyond short sighted.” The USDA has also shed hundreds of employees in the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The Government Accountability Office, essentially an auditor of the federal government, is looking into how those cuts have affected agencies’ ability to ensure food safety.
Steve Morris, the Government Accountability Office’s director of natural resources and environment, said the FDA was not able to provide good data on staffing cuts. “We’re unable to quantify to what extent that’s been an impact, so we don’t have the numbers to say they lost X number of staff therefore they’re not able to do Y number of inspections,” Morris said. “We only know anecdotally that there has been an impact at the agency.”
Staffing issues have long been a problem at the FDA, he said, especially when it comes to its ability to perform inspections of foreign products. Morris and the GAO have been tracking compliance with the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act since it became law in 2011, and have found a mostly clean record, but a few consistent problems. The GAO has long highlighted the need to improve the FDA’s capacity to track and trace food, update practices for handling fruits and vegetables, and articulate hazard analysis and preventive controls for human food.
“We’ve identified opportunities for improvement here. I would say over the last 10 years or so, the federal government and Congress have been kind of lukewarm in terms of their response to our recommendations,” Morris said. “There’s been some progress, which is great, but there’s still a number of areas that need to be addressed.”
No matter who is in office, common foodborne diseases can be prevented with common sense practices. Hollomon with the Virginia Department of Health advises separating raw meat from other items in the refrigerator, washing hands before handling food and after using the bathroom or changing diapers, rinsing fruits and vegetables as a first step of preparation, and using a thermometer to make sure things are cooked to safe temperatures. Pay attention to official channels to stay aware of recalls for things like frozen berries, but don’t stress over checking the FDA’s recall list every day. A big portion of them are for labeling mistakes.
“Following general food safety practices is the best way to prevent foodborne illness,” she said.
Main photo by Scott Warman
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Dining and Cooking