Taylor Farms Rewrote Its Cyclospora Statement Four Times in 16 Days—and Still Won't Say What Changed After 2013
Taylor Farms Has Rewritten Its Cyclospora Statement Four Times in Sixteen Days
In the midst of a Cyclospora outbreak linked to shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms' central Mexico facilities, the company has issued five versions of its public statement, each shifting focus from victims to FDA apologies to its own safety protocols. Yet it has never addressed the key question: what changed at its Doctor Mora plant after a 2013 outbreak and FDA recommendation to assess Cyclospora as a hazard? The company's claim of 2,000 negative tests is misleading, as the detection method has a low sensitivity and testing was not targeted at the parasite in water. A 2013 sampling plan yielded no public results, and the company's wash step is ineffective against Cyclospora.
Negative results from a program that cannot detect the hazard are not exoneration. They are a description of the program.
- wnevets
> The CDC Has a Cyclospora Lab. DOGE Downsized It Last Year [1]
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-cyclospora-lab-doge-downsize...
- ssl-3
It's worth noting that Taylor Farms consumer bagged salads are consistently marked, in the form of an alphanumeric code printed on the bag near the sell-by date.
When this code begins with TF (like, say, the TFRB182A11B I had on a bag in my fridge last month), it's a Taylor Farms product.
They control a huge percentage of this market. Their products can be hard to avoid, and are sold under a wide variety of different brand names. But again: They're all marked with TF.
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It's also worth noting that there's some brand names that are never products of Taylor Farms.
Dole is the only example that I can find in stores near me (Ohio), but there may be others wherever you are. (Food distribution is often very regionalized.)
- sharps_xp
I went to restaurant last night and asked where the chicken was sourced from and their response was "it's not the usual place we get chicken, but it's US Farm Raised Hatched", but I misinterpreted the her answer as a distributor name but then I realized even if I had a name, I probably couldn't figure out past that whether or not these chickens were pasture raised. If food labels are law, why doesn't this apply to where restaurants source their ingredients?
- senthil_rajasek
I have not been following this very closely but it seems like the source of this cyclospora contamination has been very challenging to identify.
Especially because it takes weeks before the infected start showing symptoms.
Isn't it reasonable to update the official statement as new information emerges?
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
-John Maynard Keynes.
- pc86
Marketing blogspam by an ambulance chasing attorney who stands to make a lot of money from this if public perception moves a certain way.
- cube00
It's next level for a family owned company act like they have stock holders to please by cutting corners rather then doing the right thing.
- meroes
All I know is the Taylor Farms Creamy Ranch from Costco gave me the worst stomach aches for 4 days and horrible gas
- t1234s
I was always under the impression that disease and pesticide don't usually just "wash off" at home.