Taylor Farms Posted Its Own Recall. It Went to 27 States, Not 5 — and the List Includes Bags Sold in Grocery Stores. | Marler Blog

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Providing Insight on Food Poisoning Outbreaks & Litigation

Marler Blog

Providing Insight on Food Poisoning Outbreaks & Litigation

Taylor Farms has posted a recall notice on its own website. As of this morning it is still not on FDA’s recalls page, which means the only place an American consumer can find out what was pulled is the website of the company that sold it. Set that aside for a moment, because what the notice says is more interesting than where it is posted.

Start with geography. FDA and CDC have told the public to avoid shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell locations in five states — Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. Taylor Farms says the recalled shredded iceberg was distributed to twenty-seven: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Twenty-two states received recalled product and have no advisory telling anyone in them anything.

Now, who has actually gone public? Two companies. Taco Bell said it completed removal of affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurants on July 17 and pulled the ingredient from its supply chain nationwide. And Sysco confirmed Friday it was withdrawing all Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce from Mexico at the supplier’s request, having halted sales and distribution the day before. Reuters’ industry source says Taylor Farms called clients on Thursday — including Taco Bell’s parent Yum Brands and Sysco — and that the five-pound bags from the Guanajuato plant go to hospitals, ballparks and fast-food chains. Hospitals. Consider who eats lettuce in a hospital.

That is the entire list of companies that have said anything. Two. Meanwhile the analytics firm Placer.ai told CBS Newsthat product removals at some quick-service chains — plural — appear to be denting restaurant traffic. Somebody else is pulling lettuce and not saying so.

Which brings us to the recall notice itself, where the other customers are hiding in plain sight. The chart lists thirty-five products under eight brand codes: CV, JB, MARK, MKTSD, PK, SUB, SY and TF. Those are customer codes, and Taylor Farms knows exactly what every one of them means.

Before I go further, let me be clear about two things. What follows is inference, not confirmation, and I am showing my reasoning so anyone can check it. And being a Taylor Farms customer is not wrongdoing. Every company below bought lettuce in good faith from one of the largest produce processors in America. The question is not whether they did something wrong. The question is whether product they received reached people who are now sick, and whether the public is entitled to know that. I think the answer is obviously yes.

Start with the pattern rather than the letters. Four codes — CV, MARK, SY and TF — each carry nearly the identical broad assortment: 50/50 blend, 80/20 blend, chopped, salad mix, salad with separate bag, shred. That is what a broadline distributor or a produce cooperative buys, because it stocks the whole catalog for thousands of downstream customers. Three others — SUB, JB and PK — carry one or two items apiece, which is what a single restaurant chain buys, because a chain buys the one cut its recipe calls for. SY is confirmed as Sysco, a broadliner, and it sits squarely in the first group. The pattern holds.

That matters because the big foodservice distributors do not buy produce under their own names. They buy it under private produce labels, and those labels line up with these codes:

SY is Sysco. Confirmed by Sysco’s own announcement.

MKTSD appears to be Marketside , Walmart’s store brand. The four entries are iceberg salad in 12-ounce and 24-ouncebags and shredded lettuce in 8-ounce and 16-ounce bags, matching the Marketside line exactly, in all four sizes. Everything else on the recall is a four-by-five-pound foodservice case.

CV appears to be Cross Valley Farms , the exclusive produce label of US Foods. That would explain why its assortment mirrors Sysco’s nearly line for line — US Foods is the second-largest broadline distributor in the country.

PK appears to be Peak Fresh Produce , the produce label of Performance Food Group. Sysco, US Foods and PFG are the big three, and it would be strange for a national shredded lettuce program to reach two of them and not the third.

MARK appears to be Markon , the foodservice produce cooperative whose member distributors buy precisely this assortment under the First Crop label.

TF is Taylor Farms’ own foodservice label.

SUB appears to be Subway. It carries exactly one item on the recall — quarter-inch shredded lettuce...