Taco Bell Sales Recover Following Cyclospora Outbreak

Taco Bell, which moved quickly this month to remove iceberg lettuce linked to the widespread cyclospora outbreak in the United States, said on Thursday that customers were starting to return to its restaurants.

The chain became the early face of the outbreak, and federal regulators now attribute 1,947 cases of cyclosporiasis in nine states to iceberg lettuce that was served at Taco Bells. The lettuce had been supplied by Taylor Farms, the country’s largest produce provider, and health officials said they had found evidence that tied the outbreak to the company’s operations in Mexico. Officials at the Food and Drug Administration said they believed that multiple outbreaks were occurring in the United States and that not all of them were linked to Taco Bell.

Sales at Taco Bell dropped in the days after it made public that it was pulling all of the iceberg lettuce that Taylor Farms supplied to its restaurants. The lettuce was quickly replaced by a new supplier.

On Thursday morning, executives at Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, said the restaurant chain was showing signs of moving past the incident. After an initial drop in the early days of the news around the outbreak, sales at its Taco Bell stores have stabilized and are down 2 percent, the company said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/business/taco-bell-sales-cyclospora.html