Cyclospora, Taylor Farms and the Produce Safety Crisis | Inside Food Safety EP.5

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Welcome back to Inside Food Safety presented by Testo, North America. I'm Carl Fierdini, alongside Food Safety expert in co-host Eric Moore. Today we're talking about one of the biggest food safety stories in the country. The cyclist for outbreak linked to Taylor Farms. Whenever something like this makes national headlines, consumers naturally ask the same questions.

“How did this happen? Is the food in my refrigerator safe? Could this have been prevented?”

A behind every headline is a much bigger story. Food safety isn't one inspection, one farm, or one decision. It's a chain that begins in the field and continues through harvesting,

processing, transportation, distribution, restaurants, and ultimately toward tables.

Every step matters. Joining us today is someone who understands that process from every angle. Kylie Harper Larson has spent her career working throughout the produce industry, helping growers, processors, and food companies strengthen their food safety programs. Navigate recalls and build stronger food safety cultures. Today's conversation isn't about pointing fingers or assigning blame. It's about understanding how our food system works.

“Why outbreaks like this are so complex? What the industry learns for events like these,”

and what operators and consumers should know moving forward. Kylie, it's been a minute. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. Let's start with the question everyone is asking. What is cyclist for and why is this outbreak received so much attention? Well, thanks so much for having me, both of you. Cyclist Borat is a type of parasite. Many people talk about it being a pathogen.

It's one of three main types of parasite, and it tends to originate from fecal matter, meaning everyone's favorite word, human poop, and finds its way through personal hygiene habits into either our water or the food supply. It's kind of a big deal today. We're in August of 2026, and it's among us. It's literally among us. It's actually endemic to many populations in their world countries. It happens typically every summer,

but not at the magnitude of what is currently happening. Naturally, and you're looking at under the 2000s of individuals that will get diagnosed with

cyclist Borat on an annual basis, and it's a summer thing, but never is anything like this

to happen. You listen to other experts, ways smarter than me, that this is going to turn into probably the largest outbreak in history to date. Correct, correct. And Eric has such a point there that in the fact that there's over 10,000 people right now that are claiming cyclist Borat has second them, but we have officially had two deaths in Michigan reported yesterday, and it's only going to grow as Eric said, because of the gestation period that it takes.

This is unlike other pathogens like we might deal with with E. coli or samanila or Listeria, in the fact that it takes a while for it to show up. And then even if you are seeking medical attention to get rid of it, it takes a very long time to come out of your system. And maybe Eric could share some of the fun facts about the oasis and how those processes are kind of a fun food safety topic. Kylie, what I want to know is, how does this actually go from

farm to table? What is that process? It's very interesting that you would ask that. And I'm going to theorize based on what I've seen, what I've heard, pictures, videos, and experience. It tends to happen when there is poor hygiene and a population of farm workers has cyclists

Is it just that? Is it that? I don't want to say simple, but simple, terrible, but simple.

“It has proven in the past with other cyclists for outbreaks that have occurred in the same area of”

Mexico to be just that. Now, as an auxiliary, it could happen when they attempt to wash their hands, but don't have soap or don't have the proper soap. And then that water is not properly caught and finds its way into the field or tracked into the water supply. And cyclists can find its way there as well. So has there been, have we figured out where it's coming from? No, not yet. There are some finger pointing situations that are occurring right now where the FDA has named

Taylor Farms. However, Taylor Farms says that it is not responsible.

Well, which Taylor Farms plan that we're talking about? So we're talking about Taylor Farms in California, but the origination of the iceberg lettuce in question comes from Taylor Farms, so they were their own grow, were their own supplier out of their own farm in Mexico.

“So from Taylor Farms, Mexico to Taylor Farms distribution in Cali. Correct. But that's what the FDA”

is saying, but they haven't said much more, and that's a little bit strange with as many people as we have seconds. What are the interesting things, right? And I mean, I didn't put this together, and you know, this common is really coming from, you know, from other experts at epidemiological experts and things. Is it typically in in in a cyclist poor outbreak? Here's it, there's a traditional bell coat, right? The product enters the market, people consume it, people get sick, the exits the

market, whether it passes through consumption, or it just goes bad, right? Because, you know, leady greens have a pretty pretty short shelf light, and they're only going to be on the market

“for for for for so long, you know, however their their package. But this this situation,”

there's a double, there's like there's a double bell curve, which, you know, this speculation, at, you know, uh, his Kylie was kind of indicating there's nothing known. In the second bell curve, this speculation is well, where did that product originate? Because it's the the first EPICER is where the focal point of the product coming out of Mexico is eerie to have originated in entered into the the US supply chain. But the second EPIC, you know, the second outbreak

occurrence, they haven't that that is is still unfounded, which is crazy. Here's what's a little

confusing for me is that you take a company as large, uh, in scope as tailor farms. You know, they have all their preventative controls and programs in place. It should be pretty easy to identify whether or not the product is coming from from their facilities. I don't I don't see where there would be a hold up. Hi, we can probably speak to this from a better position than I can, that it challenge is that this is a parasite. It it it it's not a microbe that you can test for

and, you know, in a in if you're testing for microbes, right, in a supply chain system, um, you can hold product until it clears like, like, lavender houses, and then release it to the market, which is hard to do with a fresh needy green to begin with, but it can be done. But you can't do that with this because, I mean, how do you test all the lettuce? You can't and one one lettuce leaf could have it and on the same on the same head, one lettuce leaf could have it and maybe

another one further inside inside the head of lettuce. It it's not there. So it's extremely extremely challenging from a preventative controls perspective, um, to try to mitigate something like this because, yeah, the real investigation is all, is all left to, um, epidemiologists having to actually speak and interact with with people. So what's actually happening behind the scenes right now? Well, there's a lot of people freaking out, okay, and they're not sleeping

produce, not even just lettuce have experienced a huge decline in purchasing consumption. And that's

extremely sad because for a large portion of America right now, I mean, it's sweet corn season in the Northeast and, um, one of the only commodities that has an experienced a decrease is watermelon, but almost across the board. So this has had a tremendous effect on the entirety of the industry. Yeah, well, and it doesn't help that could, could concurrently, right? Um, especially, you know, you all live in Florida, you know, you know, how, um, how widespread publics is, you know, they're

“having their own, their own challenges, um, with blueberries, right, coming out of Chile, I think,”

is, um, and, you know, they've, so there's, there's a lot going on, but that doesn't move away from

the fact that this is a really hard thing on even an annual basis for people to try to, you know, mitigate and prevent, but this magnitude is just, it's staggering in the, the, the prevention strategies that, you know, they're, they're highly indicated. I mean, that's it. Um, the hardest thing to do is to ensure, and I mean, ensure that your workforce is independently safe when they walk through the door, not just worried about slip trips and falls and cuts when they're at work,

“but that they are healthy when they pick, pack and process the produce. And it's not like”

people don't know, but when I say the word "indemic," that means that it's set up in a, in a

population that it's just a factor of life for them. And so that means that from maybe even a societal role that we have to look at improving the livelihoods of those workers, so that that population no longer has cyclist borough in them. And we've been able to do that in various places around the world by improving water supply and sanitary conditions. Those controls right there, the other thing, right, is this just shows you like the absolute importance of proper and adequate supply chain

“vetting. And not to say that, that, you know, the organizations that hit, that their names, they don't”

do that because they absolutely do. But it just goes to show you a situation like this can even impact some of the best, most highly rated, you know, programs in risk management systems that are around. Well, I mean, overall, can we, can we come to a consensus that, you know, in terms of produce, has it become safe for over the past decade or were just, you know, becoming better at detecting the problem? In my opinion, and also a veted by fact, is that it has become safer because we are

better at detecting it and getting ahead of situations. But we couldn't get ahead of the situation with cyclist borough because it's a parasite and it is so hard to detect. We don't have quick qualification methods of cyclist borough like we have with other pathogens. And it's not a nice topic, but you got to poop in a cup. Yeah. I mean, I would echo that, right? Like the system is getting better in identifying things. But, you know, and the risk management methodologies and preventative

control programs that are out there are also getting better at the same time based on you know, how the science is moving, moving the needle. It's kind of like the elephant in the room that nobody that nobody saw coming, which is, you know, really unfortunate, especially now that, you know, there have been human lives that have been part of the equation, which is just absolutely awful. Or does technology come into place here? There must be something that are current

state of tech can help to kind of, you know, get us past cyclist borough. Maybe not in this

with the CDC and also with some produce safety consortiums, actually specifically on

“quicker detection of cyclist borough. It has been a little bit of a lingering parasite that hasn't”

made too much of a ruckus after 10,000 people getting sick and now too dying and that unfortunately is probably going to increase based on all of the news reports that are out there with hospitalizations when you're immunocompromised and you get cyclist borough, the chances of you surviving that are are slimmer than with other pathogens. So with with the research occurring and and quicker detection methods, then we should be able to control it a bit better.

But the problem is that this isn't a tech-based thing that can be solved. It is simply one of

those things about improving the lifestyle of workers and making sure that the water supply that

“they drink and that they wash their hands with and that the sanitary supply for where, hopefully,”

their waste goes is meeting what the rest of the world demands. Was this outbreak only on hold? Lettuce or was it also cut? Mostly on processed, but what a lot of people don't realize is that lettuce heads that go to processing plants are cord in the field before they are

sent to a vacuum facility and then to a processing. Sometimes like in the instance of most

larger operations like Taylor Farms, those are co-located. But at the same time that iceberg is harvested, one crew will be coreing and one crew will be harvesting whole heads and wrapping those. So that what's the biggest lesson an operator should take away from this outbreak? When I say operator, that could be grocery that could be food service, restaurants, etc. So I'll tell you the lesson that I have with my clients because we source farm labor. From that area is we are instituting

cyclists for testing before they come across the border to come and do work for us in the United States. If we know that it's endemic to a population there and this has happened, it would be illidvised not to test the people before they come over because we don't want it happening here as well. What about consumers in terms of people get freaked out and afraid over a lot of different things? And frankly, we have the frozen blueberry situation and it just kind of transition

right into this and if you're not paying attention, you think it's the same thing. You just don't know. So the average Jane Joe consumer supposed to do? Well, no your food, no exactly where it comes from, not just the name that's on the front, understand the process. We can be very educated in a number of ways but knowing how the food is actually grown and I actually just got this question yesterday from a gal at a dealership where I was doing car service. She said, "What do I do? I want to keep my

family safe." And I said, "Right now there's so much that we don't know that I as a food safety person have decided that I am not going to eat leafy greens that aren't grown without being in a greenhouse." Right now, just because there's so much that we don't know and there's so much finger pointing that's going on back and forth with no acceptance that it has compounded the problems in this recall and outbreak. So I would say right now just for me and my family and you can take

in my advice for what you'd like but hasn't been attributed. Once to greenhouse grown leafy greens and I'm not stopping eating my leafy greens and once our areas starts getting back into leafy greens, we're going to test those people. We're going to keep testing the product and we're going to start producing more leafy greens. You know, you just, there's no one who is farming that says,

“"You know what? Today I think I'm going to make 10,000 people sick with cycle spora. I don't think”

we're not dealing with any type of terrorism situation here or poor decision-making." What we have to

And we are in a battle against nature. Understand when you're going out to the buy leafy greens, if you're going to understand where the product comes from. Pay attention to recall notices from

“companies and check what's in your fridge. Cross, cross, check things. That to me is the best thing”

a general consumer should do. Like, really pay attention. Don't just put blinders on and be like,

"Oh, that's never going to happen to me." Obviously the volume of this scenario, this situation,

you can happen to just about anybody. Because there's statistics that are verified, right? Those are only people that are seeking medical care and there's a diagnostic test being done on a stool sample, verify that they're shedding so that it's coming out in their poop. There's actually a multiplication factor that the CDC has where the number of people that have actually probably gotten six or so far is more than double what the statistics are currently showing.

“So it can happen to anybody and those that are, you know, compromised,”

understand where your food's coming from, you know, and pay attention to recall alerts and announcements. Whether they're coming from the FDA or a supplier or a company, pay attention. What's the person type that really needs to worry? Obviously, you know, immunocompromised individuals

always have to worry. But how much does that trickle down to, you know, your average healthy

folk? So the very young and the very old are your next set and then if you have pronounced allergies, that can make you have a stronger response to any type of pathogen. So going from regular diarrhea to explosive diarrhea can happen because of the way your body reacts to the pathogen, like cyclospora. Yeah. And, you know, if you're pregnant, right, obviously, I would recommend radar fully on, you know, to ensure the your safety and your your baby safety.

So just add to the other populations that they're highly indicated. Not to dilute this in any way. But if you're looking at your 25 to 55 range healthy individual, I mean,

it's one cyclospora going to make you sick, the answer is yes. If it embeds and your intestinal

wall, one can make you sick. We don't have like a tolerance level like we do with certain strains of the E. coli and and kind of other pathogens, this is a bad maimajama. And it will stick with you. It's not like we have a little cruise ship, nor a virus two days later. We're still, we know, we can get back on the the debt with some margaritas. I mean, this takes you out and you were lengthened by it. And then as you seek medical attention, you're still shedding these

oosis. And if God forbid, you forget to wash your hands. You will spread it to your family.

“And that's how it gets endemic in these populations and how it can spread from person to person”

because you're touching door knobs and you're touching cell phones and you're laying your cell phone down on the table and then you're showing an Instagram pic to someone. It can happen just that quickly. Eric, which what's with you? I'm not, you know, epidemiologist or microbiologist, um, you know, I'm not an expert in pathogens either. You know, I think the obstacles or the challenges just with this, you know, which cyclists for it in general is the inability of science to be

gathered around it, right? So, you know, the not having quantifiable information around what is the infectious dose. Does it affect, you know, certain populations differently, um, than others? The best thing is proceed with with a healthy level of personal caution and, you know, make good decisions around the products you ingesting your body, which, I mean, you know, is a is a food safety person. I,

especially in a scenario like this. If you guys can change one thing about food safety tomorrow,

“what would it be, Kylie? I would forbid the use of latrines and produce fields. And for those”

of you that don't know the term latrine, it's the fancy term for composting toilet. That means if you've ever used a portable toilet and, uh, your urine and your fatal matter go into a tank, well, imagine that without the tank and it just goes into the ground. Unfortunately, latrines are still a factor in most third world countries and we're sourcing sometimes upwards of 60% of our produce from third world countries. And those are things that are not allowed in the United

States. They really, I've never been to a farm in the United States that was producing produce that

had a composting toilet as what their, their folks used, farm workers used. We at minimum have portable toilets that get cleaned and sanitized and they're required to be cleaned and sanitized at least two times a week by our industry standards. But we can't infer that by demanding lettuce in the middle of summer where it doesn't necessarily grow for us that we won't be given that, but we can't think that those folks are going to follow 100% of what we demand in the United

States. Sadly Eric. Yeah. Um, I don't know, this might sound a little, uh, a little crazy. Um,

and this isn't, I guess the answer to the question, I'm not only focusing on the current cyclist board outbreak. I would say if I could make with a magic wand,

“more widespread use of irradiation and food manufacturing and processing and packaging. I think”

could pose or have some pretty widespread positive impact. The challenge is just perception around, oh, it's, it's irradiated product. It's irradiated meat. It's irradiated produce. Um, there's actually no, there, there is science that it shows. There's no harmful effects. There's actually also no nutritional implications around that. But then you get into the whole grass component and it could you still call something organic and things like that. But that

would, you like a wave of wand, like, got popped right into my head. And by grass, you mean generally recognized as safe, right? Yeah. Is it, yeah, is a product ingredient correct? Yes. Yeah. Like,

“because it would be called an ingredient or is it a treatment? It would be considered a treatment,”

right now. And it would be a post-harvest treatment. And it would depend on if it was done at the field level. More likely, it would need to be done at the processing level. Simply, so that the irradiation level that would, would go through wouldn't have to be a strong for anyone who's ever taken and X-ray. The beams that have to shoot through our body are to get the images that we get are greater because of the density of our body. So if you make something

less dense, it requires less irradiation strength. And it's neat that you bring that up because it's simply just the science says it works. The science has said for 20 plus years. Yeah. That we need to put it in place. But public perception is what has thrown off the use of irradiation. Yeah. On the mainstream. And irradiation is actually used in many of our report systems. But now, because when certain things come through, it is a requirement that certain things

be irradiated. Unfortunately, you find it in zero. Produce facilities. Public perception is the biggest inhibitor shortly after that. I would imagine is cost to implement because it's kind of even though that the tech is out there at the science and the science has supported exists. The implementation of it is so small. It's costly. But you said, if you do one thing, and that's me waving my wand. Well, I'm going to say something

I think it all starts there. People who are in charge of people who are picking your food,

make sure they're washing their hands. And it's not just really washing hands. It's washing your hands starting with clean water that's tested for the appropriate things. And one of the things that's out now under the food safety modernization act is there's nothing you just have to do a risk survey on your water source that's used for irrigation and hand washing. But it mentions nothing about cyclospora. It just says, and other pathogens as you may find and identify them. And it says

that you've got to be a qualified individual to do that survey. So last question, is this outbreak going to change things? Is this going to be the impetus for positive change in the industry?

“I think so. Yeah, I, I, yeah. Right. Simply with the amount of people. Don't you agree, Eric?”

Well, this, this is, this is 10 times the number of people sick and right now. Then what we saw from the Listeria Montecitogini outbreak that that brought about a radical change and how produce was grown in the United States. What I am hoping comes from this is a thorough examination of really where our food is coming from and why we are sourcing it from outside the United States. And looking at our societal responsibilities, if we want lettuce all of the time, as well as

we want produce, all of the time, then we have to be willing to make folks accountable to meeting and exceeding what we require here in the United States all of the time. And our produce

“supply in America has to be very involved and what is going on right now. So that's why I”

mentioned earlier. You know, I'm telling my clients, we've got to test our people coming out of that region because we don't want this coming into our fields because it's not endemic here. And we can't let this, and that's my biggest fear, honestly, as we can't let this become endemic to certain areas that have gotten a lot of people with cycle spora. We have to be doing education right now with the people that have cycle spora so that it's not continually spreading through their communities

here. Yeah, I mean, I would echo absolutely everything, the Kylie, the Kylie just said and, you know, that is going to require investment, right? If we want, you know, as as a nation,

“we want strawberries in Maine, in January, or lettuce in any part of the country, any time a year,”

we need to be, you know, willing as, you know, whether it's in industry or it's, it's, it's produce the associations of really pushing organizations to invest in those facilities, outside of our our border to bring them up to standards. So it exactly what Kylie was saying, but that doesn't come for free. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, because trying to raise

the standards of, you know, of people in third world living situations is costly.

It starts with a couple of different points. Seasonality should still be a thing. We don't have to have watermelons in the wintertime. Why? Like, wait for it. It's better. And the money ever buying it offshore, you know, there's a reason. It costs less and availability is something something might be out of season here domestically in season somewhere else. Sure, we bring it in. Sometimes it's more costly if it's coming from overseas on water, but if it's

coming from South America, it's typically priced well. Unless there's a shortage or there's some other factor that's taking place. But, man, Kylie, make sure the people are tested. And if we're going to make an investment like you said, Eric, yeah, put the money into these countries. We have the ability to do that. We should shore up the US should shore up these regions where we're pulling from heavily. I would advocate a little bit of a different approach. And I would say we

shore up our own agricultural supply. We're always in that. Yeah, always that. But that's, you know,

that really is as a reality. We actually are experiencing some progressiveness. And I have to applaud

the current Secretary of Agriculture, Brett Rollins with the amount of funding that we're getting out of the USDA right now for farm programs. And a much that is actually relating to food safety USDA has gotten a lot more progressive than FDA. They're in a bit of a snafu right now of another

“reorganization. I think it's about the six than this administration that's occurred. And there's a”

new food safety, a producer that has just recently been named in the last two weeks. I hope that they're going to work together with the Centers of Food Safety and nutrition to really get things short of in the United States. One of the biggest things that we had don't have going in the United States that could could make our food supply a lot safer is we as a government have not funded like Canada and Mexico and a lot of other countries have. We have not funded and helped fund greenhouse

growing operations. And in Ontario, for example, if you get tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, or peppers and eggplant, they are required by law to be grown in a greenhouse and the government helped fund and subsidize those operations. And we're talking about huge major brands out there now that are actually coming into the United States, Canadian and Mexican operations because they were able to get their feet off the ground in a big way. The person you mentioned, her name is Dr.

“Donna Garen, actually a personal mentor of mine. And I think she will be doing something really,”

really, really great things. And I would say keep your eyes open for some really progressive outside the box thinking. She's an absolute genius. And I think she is absolutely geared up to to really create some change within that office. So exciting stuff. I feel like if the two of you on the speed dial list for some of these organizations, all of this would just get fixed real quick. I would hope so. I would hope so. All right. So I think today was pretty interesting. We'll

probably have to do a follow-up on this. And I think that's going to be great. So I just want to mention audience. Today's a little special. And here's why. So your Kylie's been on a show before. It's been a while. She's like an OG listener and friend of the show. With that said, she gave me a call and she's like, Carl, we got to get on this. This is happening now. I want to

“talk about it. Let's do it. So I got with Eric. And he said, hey, this is, you know, what do you think?”

He says, yeah, let's rock and roll. So I didn't have, I didn't have access to the studio today. And we did, I met Kylie like halfway. We met in Lakeland. And I'm sitting in my SUV. And we're hooked up here. We got the little mobile studio going on. And we're sitting over Lake Mirror,

it didn't downtown. Lakeland. And this is the first time we've ever recorded a podcast episode in the

car. So by the way, if you hear anything at all that isn't consistent with what we normally do, there's your reason why. But I have to tell you, this was actually pretty cool. I think that this could be a whole little spinoff. We had the beat is happening, right? You're going to break the news. Break the news like we're just going to roll up, you know, podcasts, rolling cameras, rolling, right out of the SUV. Did tell me that I could not wave at people and roll down the window while

we were podcasting. So we didn't have to restrain myself, listeners. I did say that. You know, she's like, oh, we could people watch. I was like, well, yeah, but let's keep the windows up. All right. Guys, this was really great. Eric ran great to see you last week in New Orleans. That was really awesome. Yeah. And it was a terrific episode too. If you're hearing this episode for the first time, go back and see what we did. The damage that we did while we were in New Orleans.

And that was terrific. Eric, as always, it's a pleasure. How do people find your man?

LinkedIn is the best place. Eric Moore is zero zero one. And you can look up yesterday as well. Kester Solutions USA. Kylie, how do we find you? You can do it on my website, agsafetylady.com. You can find me on LinkedIn or for those of you in the know, you can beat the drum.

, marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to

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