Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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Matt: [00:00:00] Okay, so Francine and I, we batch episodes. But this episode we did yesterday, recorded yesterday, that's gonna be coming out in a week. And when we made this episode, we made assumptions on who we thought the supplier was for one of the largest outbreaks in American history, this cyclospora outbreak, which we're gonna be talking about.

And we're going to be saying a lot of things like, "We assume we know who the supplier is, but we're not going to say," blah, blah, blah, blah.

Francine: Because, uh, no official announcements had been made. And we make these assumptions based on past history, our education, things that we have seen in the past, history, things that we see that the general public doesn't necessarily see, and a whole lot of other things just based on history and whatnot.[00:01:00]

So we didn't bring those into the podcast yesterday, though we may have hinted around to some things.

Matt: Yes. So if you're listening to this and you are keeping track of the news, you will know what supplier we are talking about in this episode when we're alluding to it, and we talk about how this could happen.

Yesterday when we were talking about this, we didn't know that the product was coming from Mexico, but we do allude that cyclospora is what, what you get in other countries and stuff like that. So we're gonna go through and talk about the outbreak. We're gonna talk about the number of people who have gotten sick.

We're gonna talk about the government kind of missing the boat on this, Francine's frustration.

Francine: My extreme frustration, and whether or not they were gonna actually release a name, and they did, by God. They did release a name.

Matt: Yes. So it is all over the news, and we are going to, in the outro when you listen to the episode, [00:02:00] we will announce who it is, and there will be a bunch of articles down below in the description below that you can go to see who they think it is, which is who we assumed it was

Francine: yesterday.

Can I just say I love Bill Marler.

Matt: You're one of the few people who could say that, by the way.

Francine: His sense of humor is just so in line with mine, and the sarcasm and the... 'Cause it's, it's just like, it's so factual. I- we woke up this morning And what is... If you read his blog, and I can say this now because it's public, and it's gonna be in our notes.

So if you stick around and you look at our notes, we wake up this morning to this picture of a replica of the Titanic running into a head of iceberg lettuce

Matt: Yeah. You know what? I knew him from the periphery. I dealt with him with clients that had [00:03:00] outbreaks and all this different type of stuff. Got sued.

My company that I was working for got sued directly by him. It wasn't until we started doing this podcast that we really got to know him and see his sense of humor. It is, it is so much like ours. I was gonna say unfortunately like ours, because I don't, I don't... But it is so much like ours.

Francine: It's just- It's always been a bit on the consumer advocate side.

Even though I worked in industry, I've always been very, companies should know better. They just should know better, and they should do everything that they can possibly do. And, and a lot of them do. So I've always had a bit of an appreciation for what he does in the prevention aspect. So in my advice, and I, I said this in the podcast when we recorded it, was like, "You don't want him knocking on your door."

Matt: No.

Francine: So you need to do what you can to make sure that doesn't happen. So yeah. Anyway.

Matt: Yeah. Okay. So enjoy [00:04:00] the episode, and then at the very end there will be an outro, and we will announce who it is. But I think some of you may already know when this episode comes out. But if not, we'll announce who it is.

Enjoy the show.

Intro: Everybody's gotta eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine Elshawe and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop.

Don't eat poop.

Matt: Hello, hello, Francine.

Francine: Hey, Matt.

Matt: Francine and I have been working on a project, and we've been talking about this project for like- Three

Francine: years ...

Matt: three years. And this is a very big project, [00:05:00] and it is very complicated. Involves a lot of research, and then recording on a whole new platform, and internet expectations, and all of this different type of stuff.

I have a different view of the world. Sometimes when problems are really hard to solve, and there are so many roadblocks in the way, I like go like, "We must be on the right track, because Satan is trying really hard not to have us help save a lot of lives."

Francine: It's been a nightmare. From the word go, it's been a nightmare.

So I'm a problem-solver by nature. I solve problems. If somebody has a problem, I think I need to solve it. It just is, I have to really control myself. So some of the problems have been just very difficult. My internet, for example. I c- I can't have Comcast run cable, though I checked on what it would cost, 'cause it's less than a mile from my flipping house.[00:06:00]

I can't fix that. I can't fix that. So I'm on my third cable company since I inter- I'm sorry, not cable, internet, since I've lived here. Third or fourth since I've lived here.

Matt: Yeah. Did Evil-On send you a thank you letter?

Francine: Not yet. And I can't even use their standard package. I have an upgraded package, but it is working.

It is- It is finally working ... it seems to be working. But I was not confident enough that I canceled my existing internet, so right now I have two different internet systems running that I'm paying for till I'm sure that this is gonna work, which is gonna have to stop directly. But yes.

Matt: Yeah. So it's taken us-

Francine: That's just one

Matt: it's taken us three years to get to the point at which we could start recording, just because of all the research and all the stuff that Francine and I had to do to get this food [00:07:00] safety problem, I don't know about solved, but-

Francine: To help, I would say this. I could say to help the people that are trying to help others make a bad situation better.

Matt: I know. The thing that Francine and I have been working on- is to help the whole food supply chain or food, beverage, supplement, whatever, the whole CPG and farming community, et cetera, from farming all the way through retail To solve a really big problem that everybody is talking about the solution, but nobody has created concrete implementation for it.

And Francine- Right ... and I have gotten to the point now at which we are recording the tradings- Yes ... amid technical- Yes ... difficulties. And

Francine: it's just like, what the hell? Like, why? [00:08:00] Why is this a problem? Yes. Yes.

Matt: So yeah, three hours. But we have to talk about this. So this was not on our purview today, but we were like, "Okay, let's stop pounding our head against the wall with technical difficulties, and let's do what we love to do, which is talk about food safety."

And so now we are doing a podcast.

Francine: But first it was like, "Let's call Bill."

Matt: That's exactly what we did. Let's, let's text Bill

Francine: Marler. Let's text Bill. Yeah.

Matt: Man. He's- it's crazy. I don't know if... I don't know how responsive Bill is. I assume he's a pretty responsive Bill. Bill Marler is pretty responsive. But, like, he's literally giving a talk at a conference today, and he's texting us.

He's in

Francine: Mexico.

Matt: Yes. So we are like, "Okay, let's stop that. Let's talk about cyclospora. That's a fun topic." Actually, it's a pretty- I- this is just so- ... crappy topic ... unbelievable

Francine: to me. This is just, it's a [00:09:00] crappy, really crappy-

Matt: It's a very crappy topic ... right now

Francine: for at least 7,000 people.

Matt: 7,000 people. For 7,000 people, this is a very crappy topic.

Oh.

Francine: So I was listening to the radio this morning. They, they were talking, and they said, "I would not advise anybody to wear bibs right now."

Matt: Yeah. Poor women that wear bodysuits and stuff like that.

Francine: Well, that was another thing they said. They're like, "And these one-piece bodysuits that women wear." And I have some of those.

It's like, yeah, you don't want to be wearing one of them. Because, you know, when this hits, it's quickly. It's quick. And it, it's not like you're gonna eat it today, and it's gonna happen in a few hours or tomorrow. It could be very unexpected. What a shame. And people were laughing, but the last count, and this is difficult because [00:10:00] our wonderful government stopped tracking this, but let's count 86 people were hospitalized.

So explosive diarrhea is the primary symptom, in case you've not picked up on that, from this illness, which is parasitic. It's a parasite. The government stopped tracking this. Was it in 2025, I believe, they stopped- Mm-hmm ... tracking. This is one of them that they stopped tracking. And so it's difficult to track exactly how many Outbreaks.

How many people have been involved in this outbreak? So where I used to go to the CDC to get all of my information because it was fairly accurate, now where do I go? And this is so ridiculous. Michigan has been doing a really good job of following it, because I think it started in Michigan. Yeah. They

Matt: had the most

Francine: cases.

And

Matt: Marler

Francine: Blog. Who else would know?

Matt: See, it's so fascinating to me. So fascinating. Okay, so Marler, Bill [00:11:00] Marler, is the biggest thorn in everybody's side, okay? Legit. He is the boogeyman in the room for the industry, for government. When he shows up, people just start pulling their checkbook out. Like, "Okay, Bill, we're not gonna fight you.

What is this going to cost?" All right.

Francine: So-

Matt: Why make him more powerful? But like this decision makes him more powerful ...

Francine: before I knew Bill, I certainly knew who he was, and I can remember talking in my classes and saying, "You do not want Bill Marler knocking on your door. He is the last person you want knocking on your door."

So these are free to do to prevent that from happening. Apparently people have not picked up on that yet.

Matt: No.

Francine: Companies have not picked up on that yet. No. And I can't tell you, I don't know that I have ever heard of a situation where there were [00:12:00] 7,000 people. And these are the people that we know of.

Matt: These are the people that we know

Francine: of.

These are the people that we know of that have been sick. You know darn good and well that there are many more that have just had massive diarrhea or stomach pains and don't even know that they've been involved

Matt: Okay.

Francine: So how do I feel about this? Do we know yet?

Matt: Okay, so here's some of the facts, okay?

First off, we'll start with what is cyclospora? Just a quick little thing. This is a little different than like other pathogens that we talk about E. coli and salmonella, et cetera, et cetera. It's a microscopic single-celled parasite that infects the small intestines and causes gastro illness known as cyclosporiasis, like listeriosis, but like cyclosporiasis.

Humans contract the infection by consuming food or water contaminated with feces [00:13:00] containing the parasite. This is also big in other countries too. So like when you get sick in Mexico or something like that, a lot of times it's this, right? The symptoms typically appear in about one week after ingesting the parasite, but incubation can range from two days to two weeks.

Most distinct sign is sudden watery and sometimes explosive diarrhea. Other symptoms include loss of appetite and significant weight loss. Yes, because you're, have explosive diarrhea, so that is a side effect, is a significant weight loss.

Francine: When

Matt: you eat

Francine: your lettuce, when you eat your salad, you become a salad shooter, and it goes straight through you and comes

out

Matt: the other end. Can we be any more descriptive? This is like a parasitic M&M. M&M. This is clearing you out. Severe stomach cramps, bloating, and increased gas. Yummy. Yummy. Yeah, you definitely don't want that on a first date. [00:14:00] That would be kind of fun. Intense lingering fatigue and muscle aches and nausea.

So everything to do with the stomach flu, quote-unquote. This is it. Just- In a very, very, very fun way. Yeah, not good. Not good. Where this comes from a lot of times here in the States is from bagged salad mixes, romaine lettuce and leafy greens, fresh herbs like cilantro, basil, and parsley, raspberries and mixed fruit.

We had that issue with raspberries earlier on. I think you and I talked about this. Snow peas and snap peas. Anything where, like, you can get water and stuff like that. You're using water to treat this, to deal with the product, and you're not... The water is-

Francine: Well, and like-

Matt: Bad ...

Francine: think about the texture of the items, too.

Like, raspberries have those tight little grooves in them. Like, the texture of the raspberries. Can you imagine eating raspberries and

Matt: then getting cyclospora, and [00:15:00] you have explosive diarrhea that is red? That is not a good combo. Anybody who has cyclospora right now, do not consume anything with red dye.

You do not want to look like bloody stool. Must

Francine: be

Matt: the

Francine: drinker a whole lot more t-

Matt: Not good

Francine: Though I think blood's usually black in diarrhea, but they do tell you not to eat anything red when you have to have a colonoscopy. Red dyes are no.

Matt: I've been pushing that off forever and ever and ever, and now my doctor's like, "No, you're at that age now, dude.

You need to be..." Uh, no. Please, no. That's an exit only.

Francine: It is just, it is a blast. The procedure s- isn't bad. It's the prep.

Matt: When you say blast, I'm assuming you mean explosive diarrhea.

Francine: Oh, it is.

Matt: Oh my gosh. Literally the humor on this show is, [00:16:00] like, 12-year-old boy humor.

Francine: And my husband's gonna love me for this.

Sorry, Tim. My husband and I have both had to have this done in the last couple months. We're just on the same cycle for this, I guess. They gave us prep. We had the same prep, the same bottle of stuff that we had to drink. I got so sick It was volatile. It was so set. Vomiting, just, it was, it was horrible. It was, like, terrible.

Projectile. It was terrible. Enough. Tim drinks his stuff, and it doesn't happen. The only thing that's different is his doctor told him to refrigerate, to prepare it and then refrigerate it for, like, an hour before he drank it. I'm like, "Well, my doctor didn't tell me to refrigerate it." Because I made it for him, and he's like, "Make that with cold water and put it in the refrigerator."

And I'm like, "Okay." So I did that, and he didn't get sick at all. And I'm like, "That's really weird. I [00:17:00] wonder why he's not getting sick." So I Google why, 'cause he's like, "Well, it says it right in the paper." I said, "Well, my paper didn't say that, because I would've done that." It prevents, refrigerating it prevents nausea.

And I'm like, "Well, that would've been good to know about two months ago." So- I

Matt: just assumed it was because your husband's, like, a total man's man, and he's like, "Even diarrhea doesn't get me down." But no, it's, uh, the method of actually delivering the active ingredient. That makes sense.

Francine: It, it does something to the, whatever's in this product.

It keeps you from-

Matt: There

Francine: you go ... getting nauseous. Fun fact.

Matt: That was a fun rabbit hole. So if you do have

Francine: to do that- A

Matt: fun diversion ... make sure to refrigerate that product before

Francine: taking it. Well, they have different products that they give you, but yes, ours just happened to be the same Anyway

Matt: So back to the beautiful cyclospora conversation.[00:18:00]

Okay, so right now, as of reading this, as of reading this as of now, and this is July 16th, the national totals tell the same story in one line. As of July 13th through 14th, the CDC map shows that there are 1,645 lab-confirmed cases of cyclospora, and the CDC says it's aware of nearly 7,000 once the more than 5,100 cases still under investigation are counted.

Okay, so we have about 1,650 confirmed cases, and we have another 5,100 cases under investigation. Yeah, this is huge. This is really, really big.

Francine: So, and this goes up, this number goes up rapidly. It is increasing by leaps and bounds every single day. We could wake up in two days and it could be 10,000 [00:19:00] because it's increasing so quickly.

And do we know what the product is yet? We don't. Do we know who the supplier is yet? We don't. Will they tell us? Who knows?

Matt: We're reading this from Marler's Clark's blog, and because this is some of the best information right now is on Marler Clark blog.

Francine: Thanks, Bill.

Matt: Thanks, Bill. So suspected source, he has in this article, which you can see in the description below, no source has been confirmed and no recall has been issued.

Michigan, based on some more than 1,000 interviews of people who tested positive, so golly, poor Michigan just gets hammered, has pointed to lettuce and bagged salad greens. The CDC and FDA are investigating possible links to Taco Bell, and several Taco Bell locations have voluntarily pulled lettuce, pico de gallo, guacamole, cilantro, and [00:20:00] onions from their menus.

Michigan officials are advising people to buy whole heads of lettuce rather than prepackaged bags. So obviously, Taco Bell is not implicated, but Taco Bell has started recalling. And because we don't know where this is coming from, they're recalling everything that has fresh vegetables or fruits in it, 'cause guacamole and tomatoes are a fruit.

This is not looking good. Because until they find the source, this is going to probably keep happening, unless the source knows who they are and they're stopping it. Yeah.

Francine: This says, "Thomas Gremlin runs food policy at the Consumer Federation of America and comes at it as a consumer advocate. He gave the moment a name I'm going to borrow, MAHEDA: Make America Not Have Explosive Diarrhea Again."

Matt: Yes, so this is another article which we'll have in the description from Marler Clark [00:21:00] blog, and it's Two Friends Warn About Cyclospora. "In the morning I'll carry the same message to Port Everett. We stop counting the sick and holding those to account." So his two friends are Thomas Gremlin? Is that how you pronounce that name?

And Frankie

Francine: Yanez.

Matt: Gremlin is how I'd say it. Gremlin. And so yeah, Make America Not Have Explosive Diarrhea Again. I'll wear that hat. That would be a fantastic hat to wear.

Francine: Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? Yeah.

Matt: Okay, we could have that hat, and we could have your norovirus guy and our poop emoji on it.

Francine: Yeah.

Matt: Noro man.

Francine: And then, wait a minute, and then on the back, the shirt should say, "Wash your freaking hands."

Matt: Probably wouldn't make a differ- Well, it would. Well- If you were m- m- massaging that bag of lettuce and then you went and touched something else, 100%.

Francine: Washing your hands is never a bad idea.

Matt: No. Frank Yiannas, i- in this article, it says, "Frank Yiannas comes at it from the [00:22:00] opposite corner.

He ran food safety at Disney and then Walmart before he became the FDA's deputy commissioner for food policy and response, about as far inside the industry and inside the government as a resume gets. When the consumer watchdog and former FDA food chief wave at the same fire from opposite ends of the room, the people who can put it out should look.

Start with the number, or rather, start with the fact that nobody has one. Pull the states' own tallies together, and 11 out of them are already past 4,900 cases. Michigan alone, because it actually went looking, is up to 3,309, nearly double the CDC's entire confirmed national total. And the CDC, its official count has crept from 145 to 843 to 1,645 [00:23:00] across 34 states, even while the in- agency quietly concedes the true figure is closer to 1,000.

A count that keeps climbing and never catches up isn't reassuring. It's an admission that we stopped looking." Amen.

Francine: And this is why I don't even look at the CDC website anymore. And what did we say on that podcast, like, a year ago? It's like, of course the numbers are gonna decline. They're not counting them.

It is exactly... I said that a year ago. Of course the numbers are gonna come down. We're not counting them anymore. This is the truth. It's exactly, I said that on a podcast a year ago.

Matt: 100% you did. Yep. And you were equally dispassionate about it as you are today.

Francine: But it just, oh my God, it makes me so angry.

Matt: Yep. So he says, "The silence is Gremillion's target, and he's blunt about why it happened. Since January 2025, the CDC's working workforce has shrunk by more than a [00:24:00] quarter. The clawback of 11.4 billion in grants triggered health department layoffs across the country, and roughly 80% of the CDC's domestic money flows to states and local partners.

So cutting Atlanta means firing the epidemiologist in Lansing who otherwise would be knocking on the doors. The current budget proposes cutting the agency's discretionary funding another 40%. And on July 1st, 2025, the CDC quietly told FoodNet, a 30-year backbone of the US food surveillance, that its sites no longer had to report six of the eight pathogens it was built to track.

Cyclospora was one of the six. Stop requiring the count and you get to say you didn't see the sick. That's not a lag. It's a policy Okay, so let's put this into perspective. I am a federalist, okay? So I don't mind that states are doing this, and I don't mind that the federal government funds [00:25:00] states to do this, 'cause states could be more effective at this in their individual state.

What I do think is terrible is taking off these six from the Food Net. Why stop tracking it? And also letting epidemiologists at a federal level be able to grab the data from each of those state departments and then be able to piece them together and help state departments do it. It's like, for instance, if the FDA became the FBI or the CDC and the FDA were like the FBI, okay?

The FBI works with local police departments to figure out cases. So when we have outbreaks like this and states are tracking it and they are putting it on Food Net, then it would allow the CDC and the FDA to do a better job with a lot more data that is being collected locally to figure out where this is coming from.

But by shutting down both, that makes [00:26:00] zero sense to me. Like, I'm a big data guy. I think the FDA and the CDC should be saying, "Give me more data. Let us track more things. You guys handle it on the ground, and when this gets big, then we'll send boots on the ground to help you guys formulate a plan between the states to get this figured out and help people."

But shutting down tracking this in Food Net makes zero sense to me.

Francine: There are multiple ways to come to the same end result. I don't care how they get there, whether it's through the states, just- To stop it completely is ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous.

Matt: Yeah, 100%.

Francine: All this does is make a point. It just makes a point.

Matt: I was gonna be say, I would be surprised if we didn't know who the supplier was on this one, because it's just too big.

Francine: So it's like this. Even if they don't want to tell us, which many times they don't-

Matt: Yeah,

Francine: geez ... we're gonna figure it out.

Matt: Yeah.

Francine: We're gonna figure it out. [00:27:00] You and I are gonna figure it out, but somebody's gonna figure it out that's gonna make it public.

Matt: Oh, yeah. You and I already have a very good idea.

Francine: Marler's gonna sue them, and we're all gonna know. We're gonna know.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. There's too many people that are sick.

Francine: And not only sick, people have been in the hospital.

Matt: Yeah. This is gonna get figured out. If the FDA and the CD- the FDA, the FDA doesn't want to report it, that is going to be very bad for the FDA to be hiding the supplier again.

Francine: This is what makes me curious. If it's who I suspect it is, I wonder if this will finally put what I would consider a bad supplier out of business, or make them-

Matt: No, I do not think so. If it is who we think it is, the supplier is too big. They're too big.

Francine: Would it make them change the way they do things? Do things?

Matt: They would say to you that they... If it is who we [00:28:00] think it is, they would say to you that they have the best food safety program in the world. They have the top team. Bullshit. I know a whole lot of them. They really work hard at, if it is who we think it is, they really work hard. I've seen their practices.

They do work hard to try to minimize these things, and they do a fantastic job of telling the world about how much they work to minimize these things. But it might be one of those things that they have been growing so fast and in areas at which that are extremely high risk, and their practices are not keeping up with their food safety expectations.

And their testing is not, obviously. Because if it is who we think it is, they probably didn't grow this. They have growers. They have suppliers.

Francine: Right. Right. No, I'd agree.

Matt: And so this is a supplier issue, who we think it is. [00:29:00] They are the supplier, but they also have suppliers. Were they testing this? Are they testing this?

Th- this is a, this is a systemic problem. When you have 7,000 cases, potential cases, it is a systemic problem, which means that this was either a very, very big supplier, or Meaning if, if it is lettuce, if it is bagged lettuce, it was a very big supplier, or it was a supplier that when it got into their processing plant, their controls in the processing plant did not kill the cyclospora, which makes sense because there's no five log reduction in bagged lettuce.

No matter what anybody tells you, no matter how great their practices are, there's no way of getting this out of there. And so then they created a cyclospora parasitic soup [00:30:00] in their dunk tanks, and then every supplier after that just ended up getting contaminated with cyclospora. And then they just kept processing that lettuce, and then all of a sudden now you have dozens, hundreds of lots contaminated.

And a lot of these c- a lot of these, they do internal testing, but are they testing for cyclospora? Probably not. They're testing for E. coli, they're testing for salmonella. You know, that type of stuff. They're testing for listeria in their facilities, but cyclospora probably going to be added, I'm guessing, after this.

Yeah.

Francine: Wow, this is huge.

Matt: Huge. Huge. It would be interesting to see, too, if this really truly gets investigated like it should, how many people in the plant got sick. Let's say it does get confirmed that it is bagged lettuce, okay? [00:31:00] How many people that were on the floor got cyclospora? There's a lot of PPE in these processing plants.

Francine: And if that's the case, the company knows who it is.

Matt: Oh, they'll know it by the plant. All they have to do is see which processing plant had a whole bunch of people call off sick for the last three weeks. Yeah. They know, but they might not be tracking it. So if it is who we think it is, they have so many different facilities.

Francine: Right. I understand that particular plant would know, "Hey, we've had an awful lot of people call- 100% ... off with diarrhea." Their headquarters may not realize it. Right. That plant would know.

Matt: So if anybody in this company that is listening to our podcast is smelling what we're stepping in, you might want to go look at sick records.

If you haven't thought about that, you're welcome. And I don't even know how they would pinpoint it back to the field, [00:32:00] assuming that that whole entire field has been... I mean, they, you know how well they could pinpoint it pointed to the field? This is how I would do it. I would go test all the reservoirs- So most of the time within the lettuce industry, depending upon where you are, you are either, one, pumping water from wells into a reservoir that then gets spread onto the field, or two, pulling water from a canal, if you're doing this in Yuma, and putting it into a reservoir and then spreading it on the field.

I would test that reservoir in every single one of the fields that you were at that you got that product from, because you'll probably find it there. You're not gonna find it on the lettuce. The lettuce is gone, right? And it's been processed. But the adjacent fields, everything that's been on that, that's been used by that reservoir, are there any more [00:33:00] lettuce out there?

Maybe test that product. Just saying. Yeah. Tell your field workers not to drink that water at all, 100%. If it's coming to a hose or something like that, then-

Francine: Well, and then where are they gonna go to the bathroom?

Matt: They have porta potties.

Francine: Well, but let's say they all have diarrhea, and how many porta potties are there?

Worst case scenario.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, 100%. At worst case scenario, if they're all getting sick, then yeah, there would be a lot of them being used Yeah. Real well. Assuming, assuming that cyclospora hurts them, because a lot of these field workers, they grew up with this.

Francine: Not only that, how far away are those port-a-potties from where they're working?

Matt: They should be very close. In the food safety audits that are being done on these fields for lettuce, and by the way, lettuce is the most... We bag on lettuce, particularly we bag on [00:34:00] bagged lettuce. But, but the, the leafy green industry has some of the best food safety practices in all of the fresh produce.

They really do have fantastic practices. The problem is, and where I could see this being the case, is there was a particular field that just a semblance of fields, that they weren't testing for cyclospora in their wells. They were testing for, or, or in their reservoirs, they were testing for E. coli, because you have to.

Probably not cyclospora. And so it just didn't get hit. And so now it didn't get found before they processed it. And if they processed this and they did create a pathogenic parasitic soup in their facility, then they'll have a systemic problem for a bunch of different months. That's how [00:35:00] things like this happen.

Yeah.

Francine: Well, what we know for sure is something went very wrong.

Matt: Catastrophically wrong.

Francine: And now there are a lot of people paying for it.

Matt: Yes. Dearly. Yes. Well, and on that note, don't eat poop

Right. So every place that we said we assume we know who the supplier is, and if it is that supplier, blah, blah, blah, it's pretty sure it's Taylor Farms. It's all over the news. Below is an article from the Wall Street Journal, from Washington Post, and from Marler's blog, where it is, it is most likely Taylor Farms.

Very, very, very high likelihood that it is Taylor Farms.

Francine: And our educated guess [00:36:00] was right on the mark.

Matt: Right on the mark. In fact, yesterday we were texting Bill Marler asking if it was Taylor Farms, and he would not tell us it was Taylor Farms, but he said he thought it might have been. And then he has ways of finding out, and so does the media.

So everything came out today that it is Taylor Farms. Why did we assume it was Taylor Farms? Taylor Farms is one of those companies that is really big on the consumer side. You can go into the grocery store, you can see Taylor Farms bagged salads and stuff like that. But Taylor Farms is massive in the food service world.

So when you go to a restaurant and you consume food, bagged salad or whatever in the restaurant, you're most likely having Taylor Farms. There's other companies as well, but they are the biggest, and they sell directly into f- almost every food service that there is, including Taco Bell, including [00:37:00] McDonald's, including every major restaurant.

So when we saw that it was linked to Taco Bell, Francine and I just assumed it was Taylor Farms. Again, Taylor Farms does have an amazing food safety program. We know many of the people in there. There's a lot of food safety people at Taylor Farms. Where I think this type of stuff gets missed is they're massive, they're huge, and one little mistake is catastrophic in an organization like that, and it blows up big time because it can affect multiple different organizations in multiple different states, and this one just happened to be a huge hit in the Midwest.

Francine: So I'm looking at the Marler blog and the list of states, and the number of cases reported, and I'm sure not everybody that listens knows that I live in Pennsylvania, but I live in Pennsylvania. [00:38:00] And it says 28, 14 in Southeast PA voluntary reporting. And then under the column that says Part of the outbreak.

No, mostly imported travel related. Pennsylvania Department of Health. Y. We're the only state that has the Y after it. Voluntary reporting.

Matt: Yeah. Every state is impacted, but a lot of it is because of travel. I was in Chicago this week, and my COO says, "You know, don't eat anything over there. Don't drink anything over there."

I literally went to Target, the place that I stayed right near the convention center had a Target. I went to Target, bought my own food, and cooked it in the hotel or the Airbnb that I was at.

Francine: Oh, do you remember Barfly?

Matt: Yes. How could I forget Barfly?

Francine: From [00:39:00] some of our earlier episodes

Matt: Yes Were

Francine: you using his-

Matt: No.

It- th- th- the place I had had a kitchen. I, I like to stay at places with a kitchen. All right I was not preparing meals in my bathroom sink, Francine. No.

Francine: Just checking if you were using any of his sous vide methods or-

Matt: No, I was not using - ... his sou- sous vide method, no. No, my goal in this was not to get food poisoning.

By the way, I have had food poisoning at a conference. That is not fun. Food poisoning in general is not fun, but you traveled some place, you're not in your own bed, and you get food poisoning, that is very, very bad. So when I went there, I was like, "No, I'm cooking my own food. Literally I'm not even going to a restaurant."

Francine: Just making sure you weren't reviewing any of our old podcasts where we used to talk about Barfly. Wonder how he's doing.

Matt: Probably making shrimp in an airplane bathroom or something. I don't know. God, that was disgusting. That was a whole nother... That was a [00:40:00] whole in the beginning of our podcast when we were trying to figure out what our format was going to be.

There was a lot of episodes about Barfly.

Francine: We- we should check in on him.

Matt: Okay. Well, this is not gonna be good for Taylor Farms. This is definitely not good for consumers. The media right now, the news said that this could go on until end of August with cyclospora.

Francine: Well, and this is the thing. Yes, Taco Bell served the lettuce.

Taco Bell definitely plays part in their responsibility because it's their supplier.

Matt: Yes.

Francine: But Taylor Farms brought them the lettuce. Yes. And, and this is what we tell people all the time is you're responsible for your supplier.

Matt: Taco Bell is going to get implicated in this, and- In a

Francine: big way ...

Matt: in a big way.

Yes. This is the hard part though. Okay, when you're doing supplier monitoring, okay? And you go, okay, Taylor Farms has... I mean, they have presentations about how amazing their [00:41:00] food safety practices are. They have an army of food safety people. They do all different types of testing. Were they testing for cyclospora?

Probably not. I don't know for sure. I'm guessing not. If you're going to choose a supplier and you have Taylor Farms or Joe Blow down the street who also may have an amazing food safety program, you're gonna choose Taylor Farms because everybody chooses - Taylor Farms is the, in the industry's eyes, is the gold standard for food safety.

But if they have one little problem, it becomes a m- massive problem.

Francine: How many outbreaks have they had in the last half a dozen years?

Matt: Declared or undeclared?

Francine: On the CDC website, if you look at the CDC website, how many outbreaks have they had in the last half dozen years? In the last four years

Matt: Well, let's [00:42:00] see.

Okay, number of farms Taylor Farms has been in. Outbreaks. Yeah, sorry. Number of farms is, like, thousands that they subcontract with, or at least... Yeah, depends on how you define it. Number of ranches, probably thousands. Okay, so Gemini has already tacked on the 2026 cyclospora outbreak to them, so that happened very fast, since, since we didn't have this yesterday.

2024 E. coli outbreak, slivered onions. Okay, so they did get that, 'cause the FDA did not... The CDC did not add them to that one. That was the one with McDonald's. Yes, McDonald's. Okay. That's interesting that now it's being tagged on here, 'cause that was one of the ones that we knew about, but nobody was really talking about it.

Okay, so 2024, the E. coli in slivered onions in McDonald's, that was them. 2020, salmonella outbreak, onions again. [00:43:00] 2013, a cyclospora outbreak, salad mix. A notable outbreak occurred when the salad mixes processed at Taylor Farms facility in Mexico sickened 631 people across 25 states. The contaminated greens were primarily consumed by patrons in restaurant chains such as Ol- Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

Francine: Huh. So they should be testing for cyclospora. This is not their first rodeo. No, it's not.

Matt: So that's four. Two of them in E. coli in onions, two of them in salads for cyclospora. One was salmonella, one was E. coli in onions, and then two of them was cyclospora in, one was salad mix and one was iceberg lettuce, but chopped iceberg lettuce, so processed ice- iceberg lettuce.

Yeah. And every single time they do it, it sickens a whole lot of people, because they make so much product.

Francine: It's just so large. So that's what I was talking [00:44:00] about yesterday.

Matt: Yes. That's why we just assumed it was them, because it was so big and they're so big. And when I say one little mistake, if this had happened in another bagged salad plant, okay, processing plant, it wouldn't have sickened probably 7,000 people.

They are so big that one little problem could affect multiple lots. I'm actually really intrigued to see if this really was a big lot from Mexico, like a lot of lettuce from Mexico that contaminated a lot of other lettuce, or if it was all from that one, all from those few ranches from that one supplier in Mexico.

But we will probably find out, 'cause this is too big not to.

Francine: So do you think, is Taco Bell the only one, I wonder, that got the lettuce? Do you think it'll stop [00:45:00] there?

Matt: My assumption is no

Francine: That, me too. Now Taco, Taco Bell's name is on the Titanic, but I bet they're not gonna be alone. That's my guess. Because typically these things don't stop.

Matt: No.

Francine: Typically.

Matt: Right. Right. The only company that can stop this would be Taylor Farms recalling all of their product from all their different... That they sold. They know that these lots, they know where these lots came from. They know what lots were and where those lots went. So for their own traceability, they could be going out and recalling this from every other place that they sold it to Which is probably what they're doing right now, or were doing yesterday, or the day before yesterday.

The second it's- that they figured out it was probably Taco Bell, then they know the lots they sold to Taco Bell. [00:46:00] They know from that what potentially could have had an issue with it, and then what other lots were sold to what other companies.

Francine: Do you think they've called Brian Niccol yet? Nicole, however you say his last name.

Matt: Probably not. They're probably not worried about him at all. It's interesting. Okay, so this... Okay, we- we'll finish with this, 'cause I just think this is, this-

Francine: Wait a minute. Wait. You don't think they're worried about their outbreak?

Matt: No, I think that they... No, no, no, no. I think that Taylor Farms is very worried about-

Francine: No, I'm talking about Taco Bell.

Oh,

Matt: no, I think Taco Bell is very worried about this. 100%, they are worried about this. There are probably a lot of tough conversations that are happening right now. I've seen those tough conversations, and it tends to be like, "We need to get down to the bottom of this. You need to tell me every single lot that was..."

They're just canceling every single lot at Taco Bell right now. They're not even serving anything fresh, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the conversations that are also happening is between Bill Marler and Taco Bell, and then Bill Marler and Taylor Farms, and he's gonna be-

Francine: He went to Chipotle [00:47:00] after their outbreaks.

Matt: Yes. Okay, but here's where I, like, get frustrated with the industry is in the Washington Post it said, so Taco Bell did a statement that said, "Based on the ongoing conversations with public health officials and out of an abundance of caution, Taco Bell has taken immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from supplier in select states.

The affected ingredients from our supplier has been indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states." So Taco Bell now is making phone calls to other suppliers being like, "Hey, can you fill in for the largest supplier of lettuce? 'Cause we need to have lettuce on our tacos," and stuff like that.

They're, they're trying to find different supplier right now. A thing from the industry... Oh, here we go. Earlier this week, after Michigan officials warned that lettuce could be the culprit, the International Fresh Produce Association criticized how public health officials were [00:48:00] investigating the outbreak.

Quote, "Everything pointing to produce is based on recollections of patients, and even those recollections, based on what we hear, explain at most only half of the current cases," said Max Teplitsky, the association's chief science officer. "We need to be candid about the limits of data being used here," he added.

"The parasite with notoriously complex life cycle, cyclospora, can be hard to detect in the environment, and some of the methods for detection have performed inconsistently." Okay, why is he mad? He is literally the chief science officer of the largest produce association in the United States and probably the world, right?

Because we produce a lot of produce in the United States, and he's upset because the health inspectors came out and said, "Hey, this is probably coming from lettuce. Maybe you [00:49:00] shouldn't eat lettuce so you don't get more sick." And he's saying that at most only half of the current cases could be pointed to this.

If that's the case, still IFPA. That's 3,500 people. Okay, and even if we just go off the numbers from the CDC of 1,600 people, that's 700, 800 people, 825 people. That's still a lot of people. I think probably all of them came from this or from secondary infections from people who got sick from cyclospora that then got other people sick from cyclospora.

That totally could be the case. But where was the main driver? Most likely this iceberg lettuce.

Francine: I live in a county with like 19,000 people, give or take. I can adventure to say that this small town that I'm sitting in, the town, they're [00:50:00] called boroughs in Pennsylvania, has maybe less than 3,500 people in it.

Might have 3,500 people. I don't know. But that's a lot of people.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And okay, so we're in the middle of summer, okay? We're in the United States. People take summer vacations. We're not like Europe where it shuts down for a month. But people are going on vacations. Their vacations are ruined. People are not calling in to work.

Productivity has decreased significantly because of this. This is a real impact, not on just people's lives, but economically for the United States. This is a huge impact with 7,000 people calling out for work.

Francine: When it triggers restaurants, it triggers their support staff as well, the people that are supporting them.

So it's a cause and effect across the board. It's astronomical the effect it has. Their [00:51:00] employees, their suppliers, their vendors, their everybody. It's crazy. And people don't think about that, the widespread impact that these types of things have.

Matt: Yeah. IFDA, of all the conferences in the world, I've been to more.

It used to be called PMA, Produce Marketing Association, and it used to be United Fresh. I went to United Fresh and PMA every single year for like, I don't know, 16, 17, 18 years. And then when it became IFPA, when those two combined, been there almost every year since then. I believe in this association. I like this association.

But this is the type of stuff that makes consumers go, "Come on. Can we really trust these associations when the rubber meets the road?" And no, they're going to go to bat for their direct members more than they're going to go to bat for [00:52:00] consumers every single time. Every single time. Every single time.

Okay. Well, we beat that to death

Francine: again.

Matt: Don't eat poop. Again.