By Waylon Cunningham
Aug 26 (Reuters) – Taylor Farms, the produce company at the center of a U.S. cyclospora outbreak, frequently failed to submit federally required workplace injury logs in recent years, including for at least four facilities where workers suffered fatal or otherwise serious injuries, a Reuters review of federal records found.
Over the past five years, five to seven Taylor Farms facilities filed the annual report within the following year, with some showing injury rates above industry averages, while others recording below-average rates. From 2021 to 2025, at least 17 facilities required such filings based on the number of employees and nature of the work, according to a review of intermittent U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection filings.
The figures indicate an overall reporting rate well below the industry average of 78%, based on Reuters calculations of 2023 census numbers and the latest OSHA data. OSHA did not respond to questions about Taylor Farms’ lower reporting rate.
Reporting gaps, which Taylor Farms acknowledged to Reuters, make it difficult for the public to assess the workplace safety record of the California-based company, according to some workplace safety watchdog groups. OSHA has said, in rulemaking documents, memos and public releases, that electronic submission of these logs allows the agency to focus its enforcement efforts and that it is important for the public to have access to them.
North America’s largest salad producer is under scrutiny for the outbreak that has killed two people and sickened thousands across the country. U.S. authorities have linked the outbreak to Taylor Farms lettuce from Mexico.
Asked about the reporting gaps, Taylor Farms said in a statement: “Employee safety is a core operational priority across Taylor Fresh Foods’ 30 facilities and 25,000 team members, and gaps in the electronic submission of our 300A log summary forms have been addressed,” using the technical name for the injury logs. The 30 facilities include those outside the United States.
The company did not respond to a follow-up request for the injury logs or for more detail about what they showed. Taylor Farms also said it had recently invested in new workplace safety reporting software.
$1.8 MILLION IN CITATIONS SINCE 2021
Perishable food manufacturers, which often work with heavy machinery, have a higher injury rate than U.S. private industry as a whole, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since 2021, OSHA and state safety regulators have levied nearly $1.8 million in citations against Taylor Farms related to machine hazards, amputations, and failures to properly train employees, many of whom it hires from temporary staffing agencies.
OSHA requires all but the smallest worksites in higher-hazard industries to submit injury tallies and other details by March 2 each year. That higher-hazard industry list includes virtually all of Taylor Farms’ worksites, including farms, vegetable processing factories and warehouses, according to OSHA inspection records.
The annual injury logs are “an essential tool” for regulators and the public to identify and prevent hazards, said Jessica Martinez, executive director of the nonprofit National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. “These records are not just paperwork.”
OSHA can penalize companies up to $16,550 per reporting violation. It did not respond to a request for comment about whether Taylor Farms’ reporting lapses also reflect insufficient enforcement by the agency following the company’s repeated failures to file injury logs.
A worker at a Taylor Farms vegetable processing plant in Swedesboro, New Jersey, died last year from injuries suffered while cleaning equipment that scalds produce in hot water, according to OSHA records.” OSHA later levied a fine of more than $1 million for “willfully and repeatedly” violating various safety requirements, according to a November, 2025, Labor Department news release. Taylor Farms has disputed the citations, without publicly disclosing the grounds. Taylor Farms did not respond to a request for comment on why it disputed the citations.
Another facility without recent logs in the public records: Taylor Farms’ processing plant in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, where 13 workers were hospitalized in November following an ammonia leak. OSHA inspectors proposed $23,000 in citations, which Taylor Farms has disputed.
Since 2016, Taylor Farms has disputed more than half of its OSHA citations, according to Reuters review of OSHA records. The food manufacturing sector typically disputes slightly less than a quarter of citations. Taylor Farms and OSHA did not respond to questions about the company’s disputed OSHA citations.
(Reporting by Waylon CunninghamEditing by Peter Henderson and Rod Nickel)
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