Mexican health and agricultural authorities announced Friday they are looking into a widespread foodborne illness outbreak in the United States tied to shredded iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico and served at Taco Bell restaurants.
Mexico’s sanitary regulator, Cofepris, and its agricultural and food safety regulator, Senasica, released a joint statement saying an interagency technical working group has been formed to examine the situation and put preventive measures in place.
The group has conducted inspections and traceability analyses that the agencies described as “strictly preventive in nature” and “aimed at mitigating any potential health risk.”
According to the CDC, approximately 100 people have been hospitalized after contracting cyclosporiasis — a parasitic infection that can trigger severe diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems — following meals at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia.
On Friday, Taylor Farms, a California-based lettuce supplier, and Sysco, the largest food distributor in the United States, announced they are pulling iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from circulation, acting on guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
An anonymous industry source, who spoke to Reuters without authorization to do so publicly, said the lettuce was packaged into 5-pound bags at Taylor Farms’ facility in Guanajuato, in central Mexico. That same source noted that Sysco distributes those bags broadly to hospitals, sports venues, and fast-food chains.
Despite the ongoing probe, Mexico’s health and agricultural ministries stressed in their statement that “the investigation remains ongoing, and it is important to emphasize that identifying a product’s country of origin through traceability does not, by itself, confirm that contamination occurred in Mexico.”
This is not the first time Taylor Farms’ Mexican operations have been connected to a U.S. cyclosporiasis outbreak. A 2013 outbreak sickened more than 600 people across 25 states and was ultimately traced back to salad mix produced at Taylor Farms de Mexico in Guanajuato, according to the CDC.
