Referencing the current Cyclospora outbreak, the Safe Food Coalition has asked Congress the take the produce traceability rule off the back burner so companies like Taylor Farms will be forced to initiate programs to reveal where their products are distributed.
The coalition sent a letter to Sen. John Thune, Majority Leader; Rep. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House; Rep. Charles Schumer, Minority Leader; and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader, asking them to lead their chambers of Congress in rescinding an appropriations rider on the current budget that prevents the FDA from implementing traceability requirements, including for leafy greens, until July 2028.
The requirements were scheduled to go into effect this year, but the Trump Administration blocked them. The requirements would force companies like Taylor Farms, arguably the largest producer of fresh produce for the United States, to make public their supply chains. Proponents of the traceability rule say it would be tremendously helpful in tracking foodborne illness outbreaks such as the current Cyclospora outbreak that has sickened tens of thousands of people.
“Compliance with the FDA traceability requirements would facilitate faster and more effective investigations of foodborne illness outbreaks, such as the ongoing epidemic of Cyclosporiasis infections, which has now caused nearly 30,000 illnesses and two deaths,” the coalition’s letter states. “The epidemic has also sparked a crisis in consumer confidence, in part due to Taylor Farms — the major lettuce supplier implicated in the outbreak so far — failure to provide information to the public required under the FDA rule in its recall communications.
“Consumers have had to wait long enough for meaningful food traceability. The FDA issued the final rule, ‘Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods,’ in 2022, over a decade after Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act, which required it, with broad bipartisan support.
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“Even the 2022 rulemaking was only completed by that date because of public interest litigation and court-ordered deadlines. The agency subsequently set the compliance date for the final rule as Jan. 20, 2026, a full three years after the rule’s ‘effective date.’ ”
The coalition said the existing one-forward, one-back approach to traceability is inadequate because it does not require businesses to provide information on their entire supply chains. That means much more time is required for investigators to determine whether any given commodity is behind an outbreak.
“This status quo approach to traceability results in preventable foodborne illness and waste as “outbreaks that are challenging to resolve” lead to overbroad recalls or public advisories, such as a 2018 advisory to avoid romaine lettuce from an entire growing region,” the coalition letter states.
The coalition says that because of the lack of a traceable supply chain, consumers are avoiding fresh produce all together because they have lost confidence in industry and government to tell them what is causing illnesses.
The letter points out that at lease one Cyclospora cluster has been linked to a Taylor Farms growing operation, but consumers aren’t sure that is the only problem.
“At least one illness cluster has been tied to iceberg lettuce grown and processed at a Taylor Farms de Mexico farm and facility. That facility, located across the street from a public swimming complex and suspected ‘fecal loading point,’ was shut down ‘temporarily’ last month. However, the vast scale of illnesses — 22,683 as of this writing — has caused declining sales across a broad range of produce items including carrots, cauliflower, spinach and Brussels sprouts,” the letter states.
“According to a recent survey, 40 percent of consumers have changed their buying habits in response to the outbreak. They are eating less ‘real food,’ a public health disaster in its own right. The longer public health authorities cannot identify the source of the remaining Cyclosporiasis infections, the harm caused by this crisis of confidence is likely to grow.”
The Safe Food Coalition contends that widespread compliance with the traceability rule would prevent illnesses and support healthier diets.
The coalition says opposition to the traceability rule is narrow, led by the food retailer trade association FMI. The International Fresh Produce Association, which represents growers, has called for “stronger federal food safety infrastructure and end-to-end traceability,” while Taylor Farms has recently posted “we fully support and endorse” food traceability legislation.
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“Unfortunately, last November, Congress showed its inclination to reward persistent, moneyed interests, however narrow, to obstruct good policy. Section 780 of the Continuing Resolution states that ‘[n]o funds appropriated by this Act may be used to administer or enforce [FDA’s traceability rule] prior to July 20, 2028,’ ” the coalition writes.
The coalition says by putting the traceability rule on ice, the FDA will be encouraged to abandon the linchpin of the rule — lot-level tracking requirements. Abandoning the rule is also a slap in the face to companies that have already stepped up. Retailers including Kroger, Albertsons and Walmart had already implemented traceability programs that incorporated the requirements set out by FDA, and often went further, prior to FDA announcing the delay in the rule’s compliance date, according to the coalition letter.
“Congress should send a message to reassure consumers and food companies alike that the federal government is committed to safer food, and that it will stand by a decade and a half of research, collaboration, and investment towards strengthening traceability. We urge you to rescind the freeze on FDA’s funding related to the compliance date of the traceability rule, along with the counterproductive mandate to explore ‘additional flexibilities’ that serves little more than to sow uncertainty,” the letter concludes.
The coalition members listed as signatories on the letter are:
Center for Food Safety
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Consumer Federation of America
Consumer Reports
Farm Forward
Government Accountability Project
GW Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security
National Consumers League
Stop Foodborne Illness
United Food & Commercial Workers International Union
U.S. PIRG
