How the cyclospora lettuce outbreak sparked a massive consumer trust crisis

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this week that the cyclospora outbreak is “under control.” But many consumers have reached a different conclusion.

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Across social media, people are avoiding salads, swearing off lettuce and wondering if it’s safe to order a burrito bowl. For many Americans, the question is no longer just about where the outbreak came from, but whether any lettuce can be trusted.

The outbreak has also exposed how difficult it can be for restaurants to maintain their customers’ trust when doubt begins to spread online.

Confusion reigns

“The science is confusing. The regulation is confusing,” crisis communications expert Molly McPherson told NBC News. “So much about this case really rests on the confusion of it all.”

Weeks into the outbreak, federal officials are still investigating the source of the illness, which causes severe diarrhea. So far, there are at least 4,173 confirmed cases across 41 states.

Officials say they’re making progress. But a series of conflicting messages has left many Americans unsure about what’s actually safe to eat.

And that uncertainty has ballooned into a crisis of its own, which has only intensified after a rapid series of announcements from the Food and Drug Administration.

On July 17, Taylor Farms, the world’s largest producer of salads and fresh-cut vegetables, voluntarily recalled iceberg lettuce after federal investigators linked it to a multistate cyclospora outbreak.

The recall had immediate implications for Taco Bell. The FDA found that Taco Bell used lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico, and by July 13, at least 1,644 people reported eating at the chain before falling ill.

Taco Bell promptly announced that it had removed all Taylor Farms’ lettuce from its restaurants nationwide. But that same day, July 17, visits to the fast-food chain fell nearly 31% below the chain’s average Friday traffic in the first half of the year, according to the foot traffic analytics platform Placer.ai — the steepest one-day decline among all the restaurant chains it analyzed.

What to know about Cyclospora after Taylor Farms false positive

On July 18, the FDA announced that a sample of Taylor Farms’ iceberg lettuce had tested positive for cyclospora. The next day, the agency reversed course, saying that the result was a false positive . Taylor Farms is still under investigation and said it has been cooperating closely with regulators.

“False positives do happen in food testing,” said Dr. Mansour Samadpour, CEO of food safety organization IEH Laboratories, which was hired by Chipotle after a major E. coli outbreak in 2015. “It’s really important that it was detected and the record was corrected.”

A crisis of trust

Despite the official statements, uncertainty has run rampant. And when TikToks and social media posts travel faster than corrections, it’s difficult for brands to push through the noise.

“ Nobody wants to be falsely blamed for something if they have nothing to do with it. But the public doesn’t care about that,” said McPherson. “Right now, it’s all about reassurance.”

Fast-food chains are trying to do just that, but customers haven’t been impressed.

Four days after Taco Bell originally announced it was removing Taylor Farms’ lettuce, the company introduced a new $1 “lettuce-free” stuffed tortilla in an effort to win back customers.

Other brands are eager to distance themselves from the investigation before misinformation fills the void. Chipotle and Sweetgreen have both announced online or via their loyalty apps that they don’t serve iceberg lettuce at all.

So far, none of those efforts seem to be very effective.

The ripple effect is even reaching independent businesses. “We were doing about 150 to 200 people a day, and then, like, as of last Saturday, we dropped down to about 10 a day,” said Sean Alexander, the owner of Build-A-Salad, a self-serve salad restaurant, to NBC affiliate Local 3 News in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “It’s just a big hit, and we’re really not protected against other things like this.”

Jonathan Maze, a restaurant industry analyst and the editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business magazine, told NBC News, “A lot of it really depends on who the customer blames for this problem, how severe it gets, and how much of it spreads on social media.”

Maze stressed that active communication is key to protecting a brand’s reputation. He pointed to McDonald’s response to its 2024 E. coli outbreak as an example of what works.

“They took significant steps. They communicated those steps and why they were doing them. They had [McDonald’s USA President] Joel Erlinger going on television multiple times about it,” Maze said. “That’s the kind of response that [Taco Bell and others] need to make.”

Of course, that’s easier said than done.