Taylor Farms recalls salsa and guacamole over salmonella risk | Hacker News Reader

Taylor Farms recalls salsa and guacamole over salmonella risk

cnbc.com

49 pointscramer4next12 comments

I’ve been wondeing if this is a similar phenomenon to plane crashes being reported more when there is a plane crash, thus leading people to believe, incorrectly, that there are more plane crashes. Is it maybe common that recalls happen with relative frequency and it’s just a cost of doing business and they’re routine so not reported on? Or is this company really screwing up badly?

This company really bribed the Trump administration to relax health and safety oversight of their operations. The resulting increase in frequency of contamination by filth (feces, poop, crap, shit, turds, brown water, sewage, reclaimed biosolids, whatever you desire to call it) is an direct and easily foreseeable consequence of that reduction of inspection and control. They fertilized their crops with wastewater to save money.

https://www.wired.com/story/diarrhea-outbreak-taylor-farms-m...

They also try to portray themselves as a small family farm. They provide as much as 1/3 of the prepackaged and commercially used lettuce in the United States. It’s far more than Taco Bell. If you’ve eaten at any restaurant that offers entrees for under $20 there’s a good chance you’ve eaten their produce.

Obviously, not every lettuce leaf or jalapeno is contaminated but this has the potential to be huge if our government systems don’t push back.

That's a good question that I don't have the answer to, but I know where someone sufficiently motivated and curious can find it definitively.

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...

I sorted by the far right column and Taylor Foods does show up more than some, but I don't know how that compares to the volume they're selling. I know they sell to Trader Joes and Whole Foods at the very least so they aren't small.

My big takeaways are that certain categories of food kept coming up, namely premade foods like dips, pre-washed greens, and a handful of other ready-to-eat foods. That and there is a huge volume of these recalls, showing that there are issues with a number of manufacturers, but also that the system meant to surveil and recall generally works better than this recent cyclospora outbreak.

In terms if volume and distribution it's noteworthy that they also supply Sam's Club.

Also Costco, Aldi, Meijer, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target, Publix, HEB, [...], and we must also not forget restaurant suppliers such as Sysco and GFS.

If it were possible to produce a list of places that buy from distributors and don't use any Taylor Farms farms products then that would probably be a very short list.

this would be a great question for an administration that wanted to just stop counting covid deaths.

great question guy.

Hmm. It's almost as though cutting 20% of the FDA might have had an impact on food safety.

"US FDA suspends food safety quality checks after staff cuts" (2025) - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-fda-suspends-food-safety...

"How safe is the food supply after federal cutbacks? Experts are worried" (2025) - https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/29/nx...

"Trump purge at FDA and USDA triggers food safety ‘brain drain’" (2026) - https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2026/02/16/fda-and-usd...

"What was lost at the FDA" (2026) - https://www.statnews.com/2026/05/07/fda-rebuilding-after-dog... | https://archive.ph/XpvdS

Same thing happened with railroads when they deregulated.

Trains got longer and heavier. Maintenance and safety became less of a priority. Required improvements were no longer required.

I’m not saying it’s not a factor but we’ve had plenty of food recalls in the past:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/recalls-public-health-...

I don't recall previous instances of companies donating heavily to the president and visiting the White House followed by the FDA walking back their findings.

Taylor Farms uses slave labor, so everyone should be boycotting their products anyhow.

The irony here is that proper traditional salsa roja cooks the tomatoes, peppers (jalapeños, etc.), and most vegetables before grinding, so it would be safe from Salmonella in particular as temperature over 165 ℉ / 74 ℃ inactivates it.

For salsa fresca, sourcing ingredients locally and preferably homegrown would be best because the biggest risks are in all type of uncooked ingredients like cilantro.

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