Insights

July 30, 2026

Cyclosporiasis isn’t easy to remember. Its symptoms, unfortunately, are.

This latest outbreak of foodborne illness has triggered widespread fear and confusion. Even the Salad Queen is taking a break from greens.

Behind the jokes and memes, the cyclosporiasis outbreak has grown to more than 18,000 suspected cases and led to a growing number of lawsuits against Taco Bell and Taylor Farms. The House Oversight Committee aims to launch an inquiry into Taylor Farms’ role in the outbreak and allegations that it sought to influence the FDA’s investigation.

For communicators, this moment is a real-time case study in crisis communications and an opportunity to learn what any organization, food-related or otherwise, can do to prepare for their own worst case scenarios.

ICYMI: The question facing global companies is no longer just where to do business — it’s which side are you on? We sat down with James Stevens, Managing Partner, Brussels, at Rud Pedersen, to unpack Europe’s shifting political landscape, the decline of strategic neutrality, and the forces redefining business across the continent. Read it here.

Interested in learning more? Join us for a Zoom discussion with policy experts on Europe’s changing landscape on Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. ET. Register here.

Run the drill before you need it

What a food safety crisis can teach every communicator

The timeline

• May 1: Per the CDC, the cyclosporiasis outbreak, caused by the Cyclospora parasite, officially begins.
• July 14: The CDC issues a nationwide Health Alert Network advisory, more than two months after the outbreak began, warning clinicians and public health officials about the growing multistate outbreak.
• July 17: The FDA identifies Taylor Farms de Mexico as the common supplier of shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in five affected states, prompting Taylor Farms to announce a voluntary recall. Taco Bell says it has removed the affected lettuce from restaurants nationwide.
• July 18: The FDA announces that a sample of Taylor Farms lettuce tested positive for Cyclospora.
• July 19: Less than 24 hours later, the FDA retracts the test result as a false positive but says the reversal does not change its investigation, which continues to identify Taylor Farms lettuce as the likely source. Taylor Farms responds by releasing a statement opening with: “Today, FDA apologized to us.”
• July 21: In one of his first public statements on the outbreak, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says, “We do have the outbreak under control,” adding that investigators had identified the source and the companies involved had implemented a recall.
• July 24: The CDC expands the outbreak from five to nine states, reinforcing that the investigation and the public narrative were still evolving.

The fallout

• Taco Bell foot traffic fell more than 20% in the weeks following the outbreak, according to Placer.ai data cited by Reuters. Parent company Yum Brands’ stock fell about 8% after the outbreak became public.
• The impact spread beyond Taco Bell. Restaurant stocks, including Chipotle, Sweetgreen and Cava, also declined as concerns extended to fresh produce more broadly.
• Public reassurance became part of the response. On July 28, FDA Acting Deputy Commissioner for Food Donald Prater told attendees at the International Association for Food Protection that “the U.S. food supply is safe,” even as reported cyclosporiasis cases reached record levels.
• As facts evolved, the crisis became one of trust. Companies can prepare by establishing credibility and earning trust long before a crisis hits, according to Erin Boyd Kappelhof, CEO of Eat Well Global.

Kappelhof told COMPASS: “That means being transparent about your practices and being credible, compelling and consistent in your communication. When you’re under the microscope, everything is scrutinized, even seemingly unrelated aspects of your business. The companies that come through a crisis intact are the ones who were already doing that work before anyone was watching.”

• That challenge is compounded by already fragile public confidence. “There is massive distrust right now in these institutions, and now you’re layering on top of that the conspiracy theories that emerge so incredibly quickly on social media,” Timothy Caulfield, a professor studying health misinformation at the University of Alberta, told The New York Times.

What communicators should know

The communications challenge wasn’t limited to Taylor Farms or Taco Bell. Regulators, suppliers, brands and the media were all trying to communicate as the facts continued to evolve.

Increasingly, organizations are expected to communicate while investigations are still unfolding, evidence is incomplete and new information may reshape the public narrative overnight.

Communicating amid uncertainty isn’t new. What’s changed is how quickly organizations are expected to respond as information spreads instantly across social media, news outlets and other digital channels.

The challenge isn’t just communicating quickly; it’s communicating with restraint. Steve Soltis, a crisis communications expert at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, argued Taylor Farms took a risk by emphasizing the FDA’s false positive before the broader investigation had concluded.

What doesn’t change for companies and institutions caught in an evolving health-related scare is the first priority that should drive all communications: public safety. Messages and actions guided by that north star will hold up under the inevitable twists and turns of uncertainty.

This still-unfolding drama reminds us that many crisis playbooks may no longer reflect today’s realities. Teams have changed. Approval chains have changed. AI has changed how organizations prepare for and manage crises. A crisis plan that hasn’t been updated recently isn’t much of a plan.

Questions every communicator should ask, regardless of where your organization sits in the supply chain

• What first priorities will guide our actions and messages when public safety is at risk and certainty is still far off on the horizon?
• How will we communicate when the public expects answers before we have them?
• How will we adapt our messaging as new facts emerge without undermining trust?
• Can our legal, operations, communications and public affairs teams make decisions as quickly as the story is moving?
• Are we nurturing the public trust so helpful in navigating a crisis?
• Have we tested our crisis plan recently, and adapted it for today’s media and AI realities?

The bottom line: Build the frame before you need it

We’ve shared the kinds of questions worth asking before the next crisis, not during it. Even organizations with good instincts stumble in a crisis without a rehearsed process for moving fast, together, before the story gets ahead of them.

Want a Crisis Frame vulnerability and scenario assessment with a Global Gateway Advisors partner to evaluate your readiness? Drop us a note at insights@gga.nyc and we’ll set up a free hour of counsel.

Key upcoming events

AI + Tech

• Ai4 (Las Vegas, Aug. 4-6) Join thousands of business executives, technology leaders and researchers to explore the latest advances in AI. Speakers include Fei-Fei Li, CEO of World Labs; Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI and former head of Google Brain; and Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo. Don’t miss our client Anthony Moisant, CIO and CSO of Indeed, in his 1:1 session with Fortune’s Kristin Stoller.
• CIO 100 Awards & Conference (Frisco, Texas, Aug. 17-19) The world’s most influential CIOs and technology leaders gather to share how they’re scaling AI, accelerating digital transformation and turning innovation into measurable business results. Speakers include Jen Hartsock, EVP and chief information and digital officer at Cargill; Motti Finkelstein, former CIO of global IT at Intel and CEO of EMDO; and Deepa Soni, EVP and CIO of New York Life Insurance Company.
• WSJ Technology Council Summit (New York City, Sept. 14-15) Enterprise technology leaders gather to discuss how organizations are moving beyond AI experimentation to deployment, with a focus on ROI, cybersecurity, governance and business transformation. Speakers include Raj Subramaniam, CEO of FedEx; Kim Basile, CIO of Kyndryl; and Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator.

Geopolitics + Global Business

• Fortune Leaders Forum (Macau, China, Sept. 8) Leaders from Asia’s biggest companies gather to explore how geopolitical fragmentation, AI breakthroughs and demographic change are rewriting the rules of business. Speakers include Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group; James Peng, CEO of autonomous driving company Pony.ai; and Christina Zhu, CEO of Walmart China.

Leadership, Media + Innovation

• The Status Summit (New York City, Sept. 9) Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter makes its live event debut with a day of conversations on AI disruption, political pressures, business strategy and the forces reshaping the media industry. Speakers include Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of The New York Times; David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker; Rebecca Kutler, president of MS NOW; and Wendy McMahon, former CEO of CBS News and Stations.
• Forbes Power Women Summit (New York City, Sept. 10) Influential women leaders gather to discuss how they’re reshaping business, policy and innovation while redefining what leadership looks like in an era of constant change. Speakers include Leena Nair, global CEO of Chanel; actress, philanthropist and Once Upon a Farm co-founder Jennifer Garner; and supermodel and founder of Meaningful Beauty Cindy Crawford.
• Fast Company Innovation Festival (New York City, Sept. 14-17) Business leaders and innovators gather for four days of thought-provoking discussions, behind-the-scenes company tours and hands-on experiences exploring the future of business. Speakers include Martha Stewart, entrepreneur and cofounder of Hint; Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm; and Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans.

Bookmark Global Gateway Advisors’ event tracker, updated weekly.

Media news

• Your 500 followers might finally be enough. As algorithms increasingly surface content from people users don’t already follow, brands including Target, American Eagle and SoulCycle are expanding programs that reward everyday creatorsinstead of focusing solely on mega influencers.
• Business Insider is coming to TV. The publisher has launched a streaming app and a FAST channel, joining a growing number of media companies extending their brands beyond traditional digital publishing in search of new audiences and revenue.
• TIME gives its flagship health newsletter a refresh. The publisher is relaunching Health Matters under longtime health editor Mandy Oaklander. The revamped newsletter will feature health news, practical advice and reporting from TIME’s health team.
• BuzzFeed cuts more than a third of its workforce. New owner Byron Allen laid off roughly 180 employees across BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Tasty and the company’s film and TV studio as he works to reduce losses after acquiring the company for $120 million.
• Yahoo Finance launches an auto and EV news hub. The new destination combines original reporting with coverage from InsideEVs, WardsAuto, Just Auto and The Drive.
• Dynamic pricing comes to news subscriptions. Publishers including The Wall Street Journal, WIRED and NJ.com are using algorithms to set personalized renewal prices, a practice some subscribers are only now discovering through new disclosure requirements.
• POLITICO expands its energy coverage. The publisher will launch Surge, its first daily global policy newsletter, focused on the politics and policy of rising electricity demand.
• Substack doubles down on human-created content. The platform is partnering with AI detection tool Pangram to let readers estimate whether posts and comments were written by humans or AI, while adding a feature that lets creators disclose whether they use AI.

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