When news of a food safety cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico and served at some Taco Bell locations broke in mid-July, the ripple effect didn’t stop at the produce aisle. Produce has long been a primary driver of store trips and shopping frequency across retail food and beverage; when consumers pulled back on buying fresh fruits and vegetables, overall store visits and basket sizes lagged alongside them.
According to Jonna Parker, vice president of the fresh foods group at Circana, total edible food and beverage sales dropped 0.7% in dollars and 1.3% in volume year-over-year between July 19 and August 23 across all retail channels from Walmart to mom and pops. Produce went from a steady 2% dollar growth through early July to a sharp 6% in aggregate decline following news of the outbreak and have remained consistently down 5% to 6% every week since the week ending July 19, she says.
“Produce has always driven growth and trips,” says Parker. “Our frequency is our superpower. Produce is one of the most frequently bought departments in the store with many of the most frequently bought categories in the store.”
When headlines about the cyclospora outbreak chilled consumer demand for fresh produce, store foot traffic slowed in tandem.
“For an entire department that 99% of Americans buy — that has many of the most frequently bought items in the store — to be a source of loss isn’t just a big deal for produce; it starts to be a really big deal for shopping in general,” she says.
What’s Different About this Fresh Recall?
Food safety scares in fresh grocery are hardly unprecedented. The produce industry has weathered major crises before — from the 2006 E. coli spinach outbreak and the 2011 listeria cantaloupe outbreak to the 2018 E. coli scare in romaine. Other perimeter departments have faced similar shocks, like deli’s 2024 Boar’s Head listeria recall. Yet if the consumer reaction to this latest lettuce disruption feels sharper than past events, there is good reason.
“What’s different between the [Boar’s Head] listeria and [Taylor Farms] cyclospora outbreaks was on a weekly basis, a certain percentage of people buy lunch meat, but not everybody. Everybody buys produce,” says Parker.
Circana surveys primary shoppers monthly to ask if anything in the news or concerns about food safety has altered their buying habits. Without naming specific products or locations in its query, its latest survey revealed an overwhelming 83% reported changing their behavior.
“The very next question is, ‘where are you changing your behavior?’ And seven out of 10 consumers said produce,” says Parker, adding that almost all of them cited produce, lettuce, fruits and vegetables as the items they were avoiding in the open-ended section of the survey.
While the frequency with which Americans purchase and consume fresh produce amplified the potential for widespread disruption, so too did the impact of social media.
“That 83% changing their habits really shows that it was much bigger than one restaurant chain and one type of food, and honestly, what is different about 2026 for produce versus any of the recalls that have happened in prior decades is truly social media and news media in general,” she says.
In the mid-August survey, Circana also asked consumers who reported shifting their purchasing habits where they got their food safety news, revealing a pointed generational divide.
Older shoppers — Gen X and boomers — rely heavily on traditional news outlets, finding reassurance in official authority-led reporting, says Parker. Younger consumers, however, turn to social media, a double-edged sword where news can spread wildly in any direction. Viral social media trends boosted kiwi sales by double digits earlier this year due to claims about sleep and antioxidants, demonstrating how quickly digital channels can influence shopping habits for better or worse, says Parker.
“There are some categories that aren’t being caught up in this,” says Parker. “But when it comes to Gen Z and millennials, what we know to be true in this moment and in our other work is that their behavior will be influenced by those they talk to and those they admire. Social-first transparency will be important — and not just for food safety.”
Salads Hardest Hit and Some Surprises
The fresh salads and leafy greens category — encompassing, as Circana tracks it, everything from whole lettuces to packaged salads and salad kits — was positioned for a win. Prior to the outbreak, the category was generating dollar growth fueled by clever product innovation, says Parker who points to premium salad kits featuring high-protein claims, restaurant-inspired flavor profiles and kid-friendly character licensing that were revitalizing consumer interest.
That momentum came to a halt with news of the cyclospora outbreak. Almost overnight, consumer demand evaporated. Between July 19 and Aug. 23, total dollar sales for fresh salads and leafy greens plummeted by 27%, unit sales dropped 26%, and average items sold per store per week fell 25%.
“We were ready to have a great story about how some of the kits have changed how and why someone might come to a produce department,” says Parker, noting how rapidly food safety concerns inverted the category’s trajectory. “Have less items; sell less items; move less units; move less total dollars — and all of that can be attributed to demand loss.”
But other categories outside of salads and leafy greens such as mangoes, cherries and melons are also in decline.
“The first thing I did the week ending July 19 was to pull a Circana report where we can quickly rank across every produce commodity — what’s up, what’s down, how deep? And what really started to make me feel like this moment is different than any we have ever had before is that for the first two or three weeks, 40 of the 60 produce subcategories were down,” she says.
While Parker says her “due-to analysis” has yet to reveal a smoking gun, the declines in some non-salad categories is significant.
“To this day, I don’t know if it was more supply driven than moment driven, but it’s sizable,” she says. “Melons in the affected period of July 19 to Aug. 9 have sold 72 million less pounds. I heard from the industry that we had a great melon crop last year. But you can have an amazing crop, and if people aren’t going to your department, then you’re not going to sell more melons.”
Another aspect of this latest cyclospora outbreak that underscores how different the incident is than past outbreaks, is there were retailers outside of the regions most in the news like Michigan, that experienced a sales tumble.
“A salad kit was never once mentioned in these studies and these stories, and yet they saw a double-digit decline,” she says. And while it’s not a surprise that garden salads, which feature iceberg as a main ingredient, took the biggest sales hit, “every single segment within the fresh salads and leafy greens category has a similar downward trajectory,” she says.
Targeting the Core: Winning Back Lettuce and Salad Loyalists
On the road to recovery, reclaiming the most loyal salad consumers will be key. While these buyers may alter their habits after a food safety incident, their baseline affinity for the category remains intact.
“There is a buyer base for whom salads are a frequent and ubiquitous product. About 26% of all people who buy fresh salads and leafy greens are what we would call a ‘heavy consumer,’” Parker says. “They’re that top third driving the most dollars in the category. They’re the core shopper that everybody really wants, and every category has them.
“That 26% of people are the really important ones to make sure we recover with because they disproportionately drive more volume,” she continues. “If I were to advise a company or a retailer, I’d make sure they understood that if you don’t get them back first, your full volume will never really recover.”
Re-engaging these high-frequency shoppers requires catering directly to their specific preferences as they adjust their buying behavior post-outbreak.
While these core consumers never abandon fresh produce entirely, their purchasing patterns shift during a recovery. They might pivot from pre-packaged greens to whole heads of lettuce or swap out specific brand names for organic or alternative leafy varieties. Because these highly engaged shoppers represent the primary engine of store trip frequency, reassuring them with clear sourcing transparency and emphasizing product freshness allows retailers to capture their demand — even if their overall spend lands on different SKUs within the department.
“Where growth happens long term, though, is in attracting new or occasional consumers, and that is about demand,” says Parker.
Looking back on the 2024 listeria lunch meat outbreak, Parker says major consumer brands invested in big ad campaigns designed to drive romance with the category. But given limited produce marketing budgets, similar ad campaigns may not happen with this outbreak.
“The brands that advertised [in deli meats] now have a bigger share of a smaller pot, and because we don’t spend a lot on consumer-facing advertising in produce, I do worry that the recovery will take longer or will look different.”
Parker says it’s essential to generate demand for fresh produce again, not only by rebuilding trust but also by reminding people about the goodness of fruits and vegetables.
“Produce was poised to get more demand than we ever had before, and I really think we have to advertise coming out of this moment,” she says. “Investment now is actually more important than ever. Trust is table stakes, but there’s so much opportunity to drive demand on top of that, and that’s the responsibility of the retailers and the manufacturers.”
Impact to Foodservice vs. Retail
The impact of the recent cyclospora outbreak is playing out differently across foodservice compared to retail, largely due to consumer perception out-of-home.
“The average consumer is trusting that foodservice operator to not make them sick,” says Parker. While restaurant traffic did drop through July and early August, broader economic headwinds played a larger role than produce fears, with dining traffic finally showing signs of rebound by late August, she says.
Despite that consumer trust, the supply side in foodservice still felt a measurable hit. Fresh vegetables outpace frozen or canned formats five times in dining establishments, making the sector heavily reliant on fresh supply, says Parker.
“It’s really a fresh market in foodservice, just like it is in retail, and we are seeing an 8% decline in shipments to foodservice for fresh salads and leafy greens,” she says. “Not double-digit, but still down. And similar to what I said on retail, where goes fresh will go the market.”
Foodservice operators also hold a unique operational advantage over grocery stores when navigating product disruptions. Because the outbreak was tied to a specific Mexican restaurant, operators had the agility to adjust menu offerings rather than lose whole customer visits.
“If that chain is not heavily reliant on the food that’s being disrupted, the chain can pivot around and take something off their menu,” Parker notes, contrasting this flexibility with retail, where consumers buy individual ingredients. Yet, despite growing demand for health-conscious dining options and fiber, produce growth in the sector remains stalled.
“If you look at products that are growing in foodservice and the growth of vegetable-based products at foodservice, it’s really falling behind,” says Parker. “And we know that in total, with foodservice and retail, our national eating trends data shows that per capita consumption of vegetables is the lowest it’s been this decade before the [cyclospora outbreak].
“There are very few things that perfectly replace a piece of produce,” she continues. “We’ve lasted on that for a long time, but if we get more in touch with what the consumer wants and needs, and we meet those moments, we’ll see the metrics like per capita consumption grow, and those are really the metrics that ultimately matter before this moment and after.”
4-Point Plan to Recovery
To accelerate recovery for produce companies directly affected or caught in the crossfire, Parker emphasizes what’s most important is to: “Follow the behavior, not the buzz.”
While consumer noise and online commentary can feel overwhelming, she cautions against letting speculation dictate strategy. “People are very loud about this moment, and it is a concern,” Parker notes, but real sales data and shopping habits must serve as the true guidepost.
To navigate the path forward, Parker advises clients to lean into a consumer-backed, four-point plan.
1. The first step focuses on precision and impact assessment. “You really have to quantify and truly understand what went down, where did it go down, who did it go down with,” she explains. “Define the blast zone, so to speak.”
2. The second pillar centers on focus, especially given tight marketing resources. “We don’t have infinite budget,” says Parker, emphasizing the need to target core consumers who disproportionately drive sales. She says that heavy salad shoppers were buying every 10 days, compared to casual consumers buying once or twice a year, making those core shoppers the priority for limited dollars and attention.
3. Step three is strategic prioritization over panic. “Prioritize who, where and what,” says Parker, pointing to strategies from consumer packaged goods. Companies must focus their time and resources on where they will yield the greatest impact to steady the category and drive meaningful recovery.
4. The fourth and final pillar of Parker’s plan underscores that true recovery demands strategic investment, specifically in consumer communication. Beyond internal supply chain fixes, brands must actively message why their products are safe and relevant. Pointing to past momentum — such as berries growing by fitting into specific eating occasions — she notes that prior investments using a CPG mindset had already “borne fruit.” In a loud, fragmented market, companies must double down on telling consumers why a specific piece of produce is right for them.
“It will come back,” says Parker. “We need fruits and vegetables in this society, but what share of that new pie do you want to have? Those who invest will own more.”
Webinar to Examine Produce Under Pressure
Join Parker, her Circana colleagues, and the International Fresh Produce Association on Sept. 9 for the webinar Produce Under Pressure: How Disruptions are Reshaping Fruit & Veg Consumer Demand in Foodservice and Retail. They will explore how major disruptions — like the recent cyclospora outbreak — ripple beyond the produce aisle to impact total store performance.
