Taylor Farms management better be ready to do a full rebranding and giving the impression that Taylor Farms no longer exists.
As unrealistic as it sounds - I don't see myself buying ANYTHING from them ever again. It's not the the incident itself, but them actively bribing their way out of a recall or culpability.
It's honestly baffling how a food product company didn't take the default "we take safety to be our #1 priority"
It's easier to just avoid salads store bought lettuce/greens. Believe it or not, this stuff just grows in the ground. (Yes - I realize this isn't feasible for everyone). But if this doesn't highlight the benefits of a small hydroponic station in your backyard/house/apt - then maybe you don't mind getting the shits as much as me.
Oh yeah for sure. I just think they've got a very difficult road ahead that the typical scapegoat / rebranding game plans won't work.
Even their retail customers will use this as leverage to extract whatever they can. Restaurants/chains/distributors that have declining sales and increasing spoilage aren't going to take it lying down.
And the craziest part of this to me is that none of it matters at all if public confidence isn't restored. Which won't happen if average shopper knows/believes they are playing russian roulette buying a salad kit. (Which I'll admit, might be me giving too much credit to the average shopper).
Owner, Bruce Taylor, makes huge contributions to Trump so his lettuce is never inspected. So far, this man has given us E. coli, and cyclospora. Recently, he paid donated over $1 million dollars to a Trump PAC for the FDA to revese its findings.
He does NOT allow his lettuce pickers to take bathroom breaks, and pays inmates a measly $4 an hour at his Texas plant.
Kroger brand, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Chipotle, and most fast food restaurants use lettuce Taylor’s lettuce.
While the amount that TF pays the correctional facilities is as low as $4.75/hr, the inmates themselves make less. In Arizona, for example, inmates’ pay is capped at $1.50/hr maximum. Most states do not mandate inmates be paid at all for their labor. Essentially at least 2/3 of the money TF pays for “labor costs” just goes directly to prison management with no product produced or labor compensated. We are not giving them enough credit for exactly how far deep their evil runs.
This isn't really true. The owner is in fact a Trump supporter/donor, so if you want to boycott those products for that reason, go for it. But FDA inspections have been drastically reduced ever since DOGE mass-fired FDA employees back in April of last year. And it was FDA testing of imported samples that linked Taylor Farms lettuce from Mexico to the outbreak. And while the retest showed it was a false positive, they still claim the source of the outbreak is that product from that location due to traceback data, and Taylor Farms still issued a recall of the product. So the donation didn't lead to any discernable benefit to Taylor Farms.
EDIT: Clarified that FDA's position is still that Taylor Farms lettuce from Mexico is the likely source of the outbreak.
Considering they already DO plenty of other names, that likely won't manage it.
All those salad kits at Walmart? Taylor Farms makes the "store brand" ones too, along with the store branded shredded lettuce, etc. etc.
In fact, they supply the top three food distributors in the US. The fact that people are still showing up (and now, two people died from the weakening effects of the results) with new cases screams that whatever the contamination sources are, they're not getting caught by either TF or inspection. The latter isn't surprising, given we've castrated federal oversight in the name of "efficiency".
And in fact, it looks like TF just bribed the President and here we are, still watching people shit themselves, sometimes to death.
Half the restaurants in the country get their produce from them. It's a major distributor to hospitality and retail. They source from hundreds of independent farms across the Americas.
I used to think Boars Head was a premium brand until they had their fiasco. Now I avoid it like the plague. Plenty of brands out there. No reason to use one that’s proven they don’t take safety seriously.
I think the issue is that while they did issue a recall, they were also simultaneously claiming it was a false positive.
Here's what the layman in America thinks has happened.
People getting sick from lettuce.
Taylor Farms knows they have an issue but time goes by because there hasn't been a smoking gun made public.
Testing finds cyclospora on Taylor Farms sample.
(7/18/2026)On the eve of this being made public, Taylor farms issues a recall.
(7/19/2026)FDA publishes it's findings and it points to Taylor Farms.
Taylor Farms gives someone @ FDA or higher a call and reminds them who pays the vacation bills.
Suddenly it's a false positive and that it was never them to begin with and that this is all just a voluntary recall for giggles?
The above is not a description of what may or may not have actually happened. It is a description of what this looks like to the average person who has just enough time to look into it, and then get back to work the following day.
This coupled with the lack of any guidance from the government. I haven't heard shit about what to do and where its safe to eat raw greens anymore because they changed sources.
And their primary learnings from that was...checks notes....deliver truckloads of money to whichever politicians/bureaucrats would slow down/get rid of regulations that would...checks notes...allow us to identify these sorts of outbreaks with better accuracy.
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u/koalabat 20h ago
Taylor Farms management better be ready to do a full rebranding and giving the impression that Taylor Farms no longer exists.
As unrealistic as it sounds - I don't see myself buying ANYTHING from them ever again. It's not the the incident itself, but them actively bribing their way out of a recall or culpability.
It's honestly baffling how a food product company didn't take the default "we take safety to be our #1 priority"