The number of food recalls reported by the federal government have decreased in recent years.
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported 1,500 food recalls, according to federal data. That was one of the lowest totals over the past decade, and this year is on track to be even lower — through mid-September, the FDA has reported about 950 recalls.
While the figures are down, individual outbreaks can be severe, and the Trump administration’s staffing and oversight cuts may worsen the situation.
This year, thousands of people fell sick after eating lettuce tainted with cyclospora, a parasite that causes violent spasms of watery diarrhea. The lettuce came from Taylor Farms, a Mexican operation that supplies Taco Bell, Wal-Mart and Costco, among others. More than 20 states were affected, and Kroger reported that so many people avoided buying lettuce the grocery chain’s bottomline was hit.
The FDA inspects foreign sites that grow food for U.S. consumption, but it had not inspected Taylor Farms since 2019, according to the Associated Press. Since that year, the outlet reported, the overall number of foreign food site inspections has fallen by about 35%.
While the Trump administration has cut staffing levels, it has not cut food safety inspectors at the FDA. However, it did fire staffers who handled travel arrangements for inspectors, according to the AP.
Once Taylor Farms was identified as the source of the outbreak, it took four weeks to get inspectors into Mexico — “too long to get boots on the ground,” a former top food safety official at the FDA told the AP.
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which, like the FDA, is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — announced changes to how it monitors foodborne pathogens. The CDC said its early warning system named FoodNet, a collaboration with other federal agencies and states, would no longer track six pathogens, including cyclospora. The CDC has said other systems exist to perform the same function.
The federal government has struggled to contain some food outbreaks in recent years.
In 2024, Boar’s Head deli meat, a supermarket staple, was linked to a Listeria outbreak. At least 10 people died, making it the deadliest Listeria outbreak in recent memory. Prior to the outbreak, inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the safety of meat in the U.S. food supply, documented black mold and flies at a Boar’s Head processing plant.
ProPublica revealed in 2021 an ongoing salmonella outbreak in chicken that food safety officials allowed to continue to make people sick. A few years earlier, officials detected the outbreak, which was sending people to seek medical attention. But, according to ProPublica’s reporting, officials closed the investigation into the outbreak without alerting consumers.
