By A food safety scandal can disappear from headlines within weeks or follow a restaurant brand for years. Taco Bell is now facing the same question that once challenged Chipotle: How long will customers remember?
While they have not been implicated by the FDA in serving the infected lettuce that has been causing severe gastrointestinal distress, Chipotle, Cava, Chopt, Panera Bread, and other chains that offer lettuce have seen collateral damage from the scandal.
And although it’s never good to be associated with explosive diarrhea, the real issue for these chains is how consumers view the incident over the long term. Past history shows that it can vary greatly.
In December 2024, for example, McDonald’s experienced an E. Coli incident involving its slivered onions.
“In October 2024, McDonald’s faced a significant public health crisis when an E. coli outbreak was linked to its Quarter Pounder hamburgers. This incident resulted in over 100 reported illnesses, 34 hospitalizations, and one death across 14 U.S. states. The outbreak was traced to slivered onions supplied by Taylor Farms, leading to a nationwide recall and a series of legal and financial repercussions for the fast-food giant,” according to Food Poisoning News.
The FDA investigated the issue and cleared the chain in December 2024, according to a McDonald’s statement. McDonald’s did see a sales impact, but it was relatively minor.
“In the U.S., comp sales were down 1.4% for Q4 amidst the impact of the E. coli outbreak linked to slivered onions on our Quarter Pounders,” CEO Chris Kempczinski shared during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
In the following quarter, sales dropped as well, but the CEO blamed that on the economy and made no mention of E. coli.
When Chipotle had a similar E. coli/food poisoning issue in 2015, it was a headline story for more than a year that dragged the company’s sales down.
Once the scandal hit in the fourth quarter of 2014, same-store sales didn’t turn positive again until Q1 2017, when the company posted 17.8% growth against a 29.7% drop a year earlier. So Chipotle was lapping the damage for more than a year. And even in late 2019, average restaurant sales were still 15% below the peak reached in the third quarter of 2015.
You could argue that Chipotle’s E. Coli situation involved fewer people getting sick, fewer hospitalizations, and no deaths, but consumers punished the brand for more than a year. Taco Bell, where investigators identified affected lettuce, and other restaurants that simply offer lettuce, face an uncertain recovery.
Taco Bell is not the only restaurant losing customers
Taco Bell has changed its website listing to make it clear, even on a simple search for the brand, that it has removed the impacted product from its menu.
“All affected lettuce has been removed from all restaurants. Enjoy Taco Bell today,” the chain shared in a web listing that it has paid to appear as a featured listing on Google when someone searches for the brand.
The short-term fallout for Taco Bell has been a real drop in customers, but it’s not the only brand impacted, according to Placer.ai data reviewed by Investopedia.
As of Friday, July 17, foot traffic was down by the following percentages compared to the day-of-the-week average between Jan. 1-July 6, 2026:
- -18.9% at Taco Bell
- -14.3% at Chopt
- -6.9% at Chipotle
- -6.6% at Panera Bread
- -4.2% at CAVA
“Visitation trends decreased sharply at Taco Bell after the FDA & CDC named the chain in its investigation of the cyclosporiasis outbreak. While national visitation trends initially only fell low-single-digits compared to year-to-date day-of-week averages, those declines fell to the high teens in the latter part of last week,” according to a Placer.ai statement cited by QSR web.
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Taco Bell faces an uncertain future
Only Taco Bell was named in the FDA investigation, which the FDA walked back as a false positive on July 20 at 12:40 p.m.
“FDA is providing an update regarding the sample of lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico, which was reported positive on July 18, 2026. Due to the complexity in detection of Cyclospora, FDA laboratory experts re-reviewed the sample results and have concluded that the finding does not represent true amplification and should be considered a false positive,” the FDA shared on its website.
That technically absolves the chain, but it’s not likely to change the immediate consumer impact. Taco Bell is now like the other restaurants impacted, which have been pulled in simply because they also serve lettuce.
The challenge facing Taco Bell, and to a lesser extent, the other impacted chains, is that there’s no telling what the long-term impact of the scandal will be. It could simply be a short-term headwind, as was the case with the McDonald’s situation, or a longer-term drag, as with the Chipotle scandal.
It’s possible that Chipotle was a somewhat unique situation because of how the brand marketed itself.
“One reason the company is having such a difficult time with the outbreak is that Chipotle was built by promoting its product as fresh and healthy. This struck at the heart of what made the brand popular,” Bloomberg TV’s Lisa Abramowicz reported on “Bloomberg Markets” back in 2015.
Consumers are scared of more than Taco Bell
Consumer perception is not always based on reality, as we’re seeing in this case where multiple chains are being punished, depsite the FDA not naming them in its investigation.
“Amid the current outbreak, the FDA and CDC urge consumers not to eat iceberg lettuce from Taco Bell restaurants in the five listed states. They note that shredded iceberg lettuce sold in grocery stores or served in other restaurants has not so far been implicated,” reported ARS Technica.
That caution may be justified based on the extent of the outbreak.
Cyclosporiasis cases have been reported in 34 states, with multiple clusters and outbreaks suspected. The CDC is reporting 1,645 laboratory-confirmed cases nationwide, including 141 hospitalizations, but state and local health departments report much larger case tallies, which also include probable cases.
Analysts unsure of long-term impact
Having covered the restaurant industry for more than 30 years, I’m inclined to think that consumers will quickly forgive Taco Bell, although they might avoid ordering lettuce. That’s based on how quickly consumers forgave McDonald’s during its slivered onion scandal, but past behavior does not guarantee how the public will react in the future.
Analysts don’t think the chain is at risk for a Chipotle-style long-term customer traffic and sales decline.
TD Cowen analysts, in a note on Thursday (July 16), said that based on other recent food-safety issues at big restaurant chains — such as at McDonald’s in the fourth quarter of 2024, and at Wendy’s in the second quarter of 2022 — the risk to Yum’s stock might not last more than a quarter,” according to MarketWatch.
The TD Cowen analysts explained why consumers might be more forgiving now.
“Food-safety issues were more problematic for the industry prior to COVID-19 as well as the broader adoption of social media that we argue has shortened consumers’ attention spans,” the analysts wrote. “As such, our initial thinking for the bear case is this presents risk of a [roughly] one-quarter impact based on recent analogs,” they shared.
RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino thinks that Taco Bell does face some long-term risk.
“When a restaurant has an issue like this, they don’t lose money on the lettuce they throw away. They lose money for the years of scars it has on the consumer,” he told TheStreet.
He believes that Taco Bell may not simply shrug off this incident, but acknowledges that it’s too early to tell.
“And when you look at Chipotle, they had that E. coli outbreak, and it didn’t hurt them for weeks. It took them a while and millions of dollars in free burrito promotions and ad campaigns just to get people to stop associating the chain with that memory,” he added.
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