24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com are doing a pretty good job, but they were behind the curve,” he says. “A big part of the problem is this administration, no matter which side of the aisle you fall on. They’ve made major cuts and there’s just not enough people to investigate. “As a result, this outbreak happened, and it happened at a much bigger scale. It’s like trying to solve a problem with your hands behind your back. They are working their asses off, I feel sorry for them. “Of all places to cut costs, you are going to cut our food system?” Drive through the Salinas Valley at the end of July and one would likely encounter fields of lettuce being destroyed. In the early days of the cyclospora outbreak, and in the mess of the FDA’s communication alerting the public to findings of their investigation, consumers grew fearful of eating fresh produce. Internet speculation began linking Taylor Farms as the supplier even before the FDA’s official announcement July 17, which was quickly followed by Taylor Farms de Mexico initiating a voluntary recall of iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico. Taylor Farms and various trade associations were quick to send out statements seeking to assure consumers that lettuce grown here was safe, but consumer confidence was shaken. “An economic impact was felt here even though the product was not from the U.S., California or this region,” says Christopher Valadez, president/CEO of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. “We saw that all operations, regardless of size and scale, were impacted. As for processing facilities, they too were impacted.” Iceberg lettuce prices saw a 16.4-percent plunge in July, according to Consumer Price Index reports. Consumer skepticism rippled across the country, impacting lettuce growers in Monterey County, where roughly 56 percent of the nation’s head lettuce and 61 percent of leaf lettuce is grown. “I haven’t totaled everything up, but on head lettuce, I think it was right around 50,000 cartons, which would be 50 to 60 acres of head lettuce and about half of that worth of romaine,” says Ryan Kelly of Boutonnet Farms. He explains that many growers across the Salinas Valley have disced their fields, a practice by which farmers destroy the crop by mechanically processing it into the ground. With roughly 46 percent of its acreage devoted to lettuce, Boutonnet Farms, like other growers in the region, faced a significant downturn following news of the outbreak. The company typically farms between 4,600 and 4,800 crop acres per year and sells through a mix of contract arrangements with retailers and profit-sharing agreements. Kelly says some of those contracts helped shield the farm from bearing the full loss; in other words, growers weren’t the only ones absorbing the financial impact of the decline in lettuce consumption. The outbreak was announced in the middle of the traditional Salinas Valley growing season, which typically runs from spring through fall and wraps up near the end of October. Before the outbreak, yields and pricing for lettuce had been strong, and had been Boutonnet Farms’ best-performing crop of the year. “We’ve still got a few months here before the season winds up and determines how the season was as a whole,” Kelly says. “Even though these last couple months have been pretty brutal, it still might wind up—and I’m hoping here—that it’ll turn out positive.” Local leaders say market signals are supporting a rebound, and that consumer demand for vegetables is fairly resilient. Kelly points to past E. coli outbreaks, where demand came back roughly two to six months after. Market prices, he says, are still not quite to where they should be, but are recovering slowly. “When all of a sudden fields are being disced, or people are only getting work for half a day, I do worry about the impact,” Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue says. “There’s the human side of all this, which I’m really aware of. And then as a practical matter, we have sales tax as part of our budget projections, and so you know we’ll probably have to stress test those a little bit and see if there was an impact.” Whether there is any impact on rebuilding investment in federal agencies tasked with regulating and monitoring food safety remains to be seen. Sara Rubin contributed to this report. Shades of Green A look at the political money that has drawn congressional scrutiny. By Sara Rubin As the patient count of people suffering from cyclosporiasis grew through the summer, the national spotlight turned toward Taylor Farms—and to the company’s political contributions. On July 27, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to CEO Bruce Taylor. “When Americans go to buy produce at the grocery store or order a Crunchwrap Supreme, they trust that the food they buy will be safe to consume. Over the last few weeks, however, this trust has been broken as thousands have been sickened by a national cyclosporiasis outbreak,” he wrote. Garcia listed various political contributions Taylor Farms had made. There was a $1 million donation to the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., and another $1 million to the right-wing Congressional Leadership Fund. He also pointed out recent lobbying contributions, although the pattern goes back further, according to federal lobbying records. Back in 2009, Taylor Farms spent $10,000 with Troutman Strategies for lobbying on legislation including the Food Safety Modernization Act. Along with Driscoll’s, Mission Produce, JV Smith Companies and other ag companies, Taylor Fresh Foods was a member of the Produce Coalition for NAFTA that paid $150,000 per quarter to The Russell Group, Inc. from 2018-2019 to work on trade issues related to produce. The biggest sum Taylor Farms paid was over $1.5 million from 2019-2023 to The Normandy Group, LLC, with issues mostly listed as “food safety and agriculture.” Most recently, in 2025-26, the company paid the lobbying firm Sidley Austin LLP $810,000 to work on “food regulation.” “Taylor Fresh Foods categorically rejects any suggestion that the company has attempted or received favorable regulatory treatment as a result of political contributions or any other improper influence,” a Taylor spokesperson said in a statement. “These allegations are false.” In his letter, Garcia did not mention that Taylor Farms also supports food safety research privately. Taylor and Western Growers Association are the only “diamond level” contributors, at $1 million or more, listed by Jennifer McEntire’s company, Food Safety Strategies—Taylor is helping pay for the research and analysis that the government is seemingly not doing. Other political contributions also add some context. Taylor Fresh Foods has given big to other causes, including local ones. In 2024, the company gave $49,000 to Citizens Supporting the Recall of Andrew Sandoval, a member of Salinas City Council. The company also gave $100,000 to the PAC Protect Salinas, which supported the council campaigns of José Luis Barajas, Margaret D’Arrigo, Gloria De La Rosa, Aurelio Salazar Jr. and Mayor Dennis Donohue. Also in 2024, Taylor gave $500,000 to the Yes on Prop. 36 campaign, a successful statewide measure that provided for the possibility of stricter sentences for crimes connected to drug possession and petty theft. In local philanthropy, Taylor Farms launched a fundraising campaign with $1.5 million for the Salinas Regional Soccer Complex. In education, since 2008, the company has awarded $5.3 million in scholarship funds and last year launched a literacy incentive program with $60,500 at Salinas City Elementary School District and checks for the second year of the “Golden Ticket” initiative, of more than $64,000, are about to be distributed. “An economic impact was felt here even though the product was not from the U.S., California or this region.”
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