Taylor Farms gave more than $2 million to conservative political groups in 2025 while it was being scrutinized in a cyclospora outbreak investigation tied to lettuce. The spending included $1 million to MAGA Inc. and $1.1 million to other super PACs focused on electing Republicans.
That is why people are searching now for whether it is safe to eat lettuce right now: the company at the center of the outbreak was also pouring money into politics while the food-safety fight was still active. Bruce Taylor, the family member behind the company, personally gave more than $900,000 to Republican PACs and candidates since 2020, including donations to John Cornyn and Marsha Blackburn.
The company’s political giving did not start this year. From 2020 through the end of 2024, Taylor Farms donated more than $1.6 million to conservative PACs, including $850,000 to AFP Action. In early 2025, it hired Sidley Austin to push on food-safety regulation and has since spent $810,000 on lobbying, part of a broader effort to shape how the government responds when its produce is under scrutiny.
The outbreak has also exposed a sharp public split over responsibility. HHS said on Monday that Taylor Farms’ donations had nothing to do with the Trump administration’s response, posting, “This is how the FAKE NEWS works: imply collusion, ignore the facts,” and adding, “Nothing influences our decisions except science and the safety of the American people.” Taylor Farms, meanwhile, said the FDA apologized after announcing a false-positive test on a sample of its lettuce, while the FDA told reporters that no official apology happened.
What makes the current case harder to dismiss is the company’s history. The FDA named Taylor Farms as a source of a cyclospora outbreak in 2013, and in 2015 the company voluntarily recalled multiple celery products that may have been contaminated. Taylor Farms executives also met with White House and FDA officials to discuss what they saw as shortfalls in the agencies’ response, which leaves the central question less about politics than proof: what evidence led the FDA to identify Taylor Farms this time, and what will regulators do next if that evidence holds.
