How Taylor Farms became integral to Americas food supply system

The cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands of people across the U.S. has brought fresh scrutiny of the integral role Taylor Farms and other massive suppliers play in the country’s food supply.

The company, which the Food and Drug Administration has linked to the parasite’s spread, is one of the world’s largest producers of fresh-cut vegetables and salads, supplying some of the biggest grocery chains and restaurant companies in the U.S. Its products are sold at retailers including Walmart, Kroger, Whole Foods and Target, and its restaurant customers include McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Chipotle. Taylor Farms says 40% of salad kits sold at grocery stores come from the company, giving it a massive role in supplying a convenient and cheap vegetable option for many shoppers.

The company, founded in 1995, has grown through a combination of scale and acquisitions, building an operation that spans much of the food supply chain. Taylor Farms works with hundreds of family farms for its produce and handles processing, packaging and distribution itself.

That reach has made the company an increasingly important link between farms and some of America’s biggest food companies, and heightens the risk of food safety problems spreading. Taylor Farms’ scale has put the company under a brighter spotlight as the FDA investigates the cyclospora outbreak that the agency has linked to iceberg lettuce processed at Taylor Farms’ facility in central Mexico, some of which was served at Taco Bell restaurants.

Taylor Farms declined CNBC’s invitation for an interview but sent comments defending the steps it has taken to respond to the outbreak and keep its produce safe.

“We are confident in our food and food safety systems and will continue to be transparent as more information becomes available,” a spokesperson for Taylor Fresh Foods, the corporate name for Taylor Farms, told CNBC.

Taylor Farms said in an August post on its website that it spends more than $200 million a year on food safety. The company added in a statement to CNBC that safety is its “biggest area of funding by several orders of magnitude.”

Taylor Farms has also voluntarily suspended iceberg lettuce sourcing and production from central Mexico and commissioned independent experts to conduct a review of food safety practices at its facility there. The FDA has not reported a positive product sample for cyclospora, because it can take weeks for symptoms to show and lettuce has a short shelf life, so it is difficult to test the right crop.

The breadth of the outbreak, which has led Walmart to recall bagged salads and Taco Bell to pull lettuce at some restaurants, underscores how integral Taylor Farms has made itself to the U.S. food system, and why broader industry consolidation risks worsening foodborne illness outbreaks.

Taylor Farms generated roughly $7.3 billion in sales last year, according to PitchBook.

The company handles much of the processing and distribution of the produce it sources, including washing, chopping, packaging, labeling, shipping and refrigeration. Taylor Farms and other suppliers like it have succeeded in part by making themselves indispensable to big restaurants.

Chains rely on their ability to offer a consistent supply on a huge scale, said Stephen Zagor, a restaurant consultant and adjunct associate professor at Columbia Business School.

“They can promise institutions that have multiple locations all over the country that they can supply what they need on a regular basis,” Zagor said. “For a restaurant chain, it’s easier for them to deal with a major multinational company than it is to deal with local farmers.”

That infrastructure provides consistency and reduces the need for labor-intensive preparation at chains. Taylor Farms can dice onions for McDonald’s or shred lettuce for Taco Bell.

The company has also become more important by getting bigger. Taylor Farms has expanded its infrastructure through a string of acquisitions and investments, including its purchases of Earthbound Farm in 2019 and agricultural robotics company Farmwise in 2025.

The benefit of that consolidation has been reliable supply, standardized products and potentially lower labor costs, said Zagor.

But there is another side.

“The consolidation has camouflaged sources,” Zagor said. “It’s all put in one big pot. And if that pot has now gone bad, that affects the entire downstream logistic food chain.”

Zagor called it a “culinary national nightmare” when a company that distributes food to so many other businesses finds itself at the center of a foodborne illness outbreak.

It’s not the first time Taylor Farms has been tied to an outbreak.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler compiled a list of outbreaks linked to Taylor Farms and whether they led to product recalls. Among them is a 2009 salmonella outbreak linked to shredded lettuce, along with a 2024 E. coli outbreak tied to slivered onions served at McDonald’s.

His law firm, Marler Clark, has filed five complaints based on the current cyclospora outbreak so far in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky, against four separate Taco Bell franchise operators and the restaurant chain itself, along with Taylor entities including four operators and one supplier.

Taylor Farms, along with other food service giants such as US Foods and Sysco, has become bigger and more vital in part by buying other companies.

Taylor Farms has completed more than a dozen acquisitions or investments since 2011. While the cyclospora outbreak — the largest in U.S. history — has brought fresh scrutiny of the effects of consolidation, it’s unclear how much skepticism there was of the deals when they happened.

CNBC asked the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission whether either agency had reviewed or challenged Taylor Farms’ acquisitions and investments. The DOJ did not respond. The FTC said it could not provide additional details without knowing the purchase prices of the transactions, which determines if the agency even had the opportunity to review.

CNBC found no public evidence that the FTC has challenged a Taylor Farms acquisition. Those deals took place under multiple presidential administrations of both parties, and various FTC leaders.

Some experts also highlighted a separate issue in the U.S. food system: the strength of oversight and regulation of food safety as distributors get larger and more influential. As the cyclospora outbreak raged, various news reports highlighted that Taylor Fresh Foods made a $1 million donation to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. last year, around the time the Trump administration delayed a rule related to food tracing requirements. The company has also spent millions on anti-regulatory lobbying.

“If what you want is light enforcement of anything that’s going to be expensive and cost you money, it’s very nice to have political power,” said Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “You can go to Congress and say, we don’t want to do that.”

Taylor Fresh Foods rejected suggestions that its political contributions have resulted in favorable regulatory treatment.

“Taylor Farms categorically rejects any suggestion that the company has attempted or received favorable regulatory treatment as a result of political contributions or any other improper influence,” a spokesperson said. “The allegations are false.”

Nestle worries whether regulators have enough power as a few big companies become increasingly vital parts of the food system.

“Companies want to produce food as cheaply as possible,” said Nestle.

“And that means you need oversight,” she added.

— CNBC’s Ryan Baker contributed to this report