The many brands of Taylor Farms, suspected source of America's diarrhea lettuce

Taylor Farms is the suspected source of the "diarrhea lettuce" linked to the ongoing outbreak of Cyclosporiasis, now entering more states as it exits more American guts. Taco Bell was just the first outlet to go public, though, and Taylor Farms has many other customers. It also, like virtually all major food suppliers, ends up sold a myriad of brand names.

Taylor Farms sells produce under many brand names including unlabeled store brands. They include Earthbound Farm, Eat Smart/FreshPoint, Green Giant Fresh, Target's Good & Gather/Market Pantry, as well as Kirkland Signature, Private Selection/Simple Truth (Kroger-owned stores), Walmart's Marketside/Great Value, and some Trader Joe's salads. The important qualifier there is "some." Not all Trader Joe's produce is Taylor Farms, but salad kits and prepared greens frequently are.

Note that the only retail brand listed in Taylor Farms' recall notice was MKTSD, i.e. Marketside, WalMart's store brand; most of the identified batches were business-to-business "food service" products. Snopes warns that you can't rely on lot codes to reliably identify the company as the source of any given bag of greens. Food safety law firm Markler Clark identifies Cross Valley Farms, Peak Fresh Produce and Markon as likely food service brands implicated, and Subway and Jack In The Box as restaurants in the mix.

The Marketside finding deserves its own paragraph, because of what CDC told NBC News on Friday morning: shredded lettuce sold in grocery stores or served in other restaurants is not affected. Taylor Farms' own recall notice lists consumer retail bags of shredded iceberg lettuce and iceberg salad. Both statements are in the public record this weekend and they cannot both be true. Federal officials themselves told STAT that other brands, restaurants, retailers or distribution channels could yet be tied to the outbreak. And Michigan's chief medical executive, Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, made the point plainly: a supplier that sells to restaurants may also stock grocery stores, and many people who got sick in her state said they never ate at Taco Bell.

The joke of the summer is, of course, "hold the salad, I'm trying to eat healthy."