Taco Bell customer numbers still in the toilet months after explosive diarrhea outbreak

Por Graig Graziosi — – World RSS Feed

Taco Bell voluntarily removed ingredients that could transmit cyclospora a week after the outbreak became national news

Graig Graziosi in Washington, D.C. Monday 21 September 2026 22:18 BST

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CDC declares Taco Bell lettuce outbreak over after 19,595 cases and two deaths

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Taco Bell is still struggling to pull customers back after it was connected to the Cyclospora outbreak over the summer that caused more than 20,000 people to fall ill across the country.

The chain was among those that used iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, which was identified as the source of the outbreak by the federal government.

Taco Bell pulled many of its ingredients, including the iceberg lettuce, early on during the outbreak, but its identification as a potential vector for the illness resulted in a major decline in traffic from which it has yet to fully recover, according to Restaurant Business Online.

Data from Placer.ai, reviewed by the publication, shows that visits to Taco Bell locations dropped 18.1 percent on July 15, a week after the fast food giant began removing ingredients that could potentially transmit the illness.

Visits dropped to -30.9 percent by July 17 when compared to the day-of-week average from January 1 to July 6, 2026, according to the outlet.

Customers enter a Taco Bell restaurant on July 14, 2026 in La Cañada Flintridge, California. Taco Bell’s sales still haven’t fully recovered following this summer’s cyclospora outbreak, which was linked to some ingredients used by the restaurant ( Getty )

In response, Taco Bell launched a flurry of promotions to draw visitors back, such as a $1 Enchirito offer — those usually run about $4.29 — and $1 Mexican pizzas, which typically cost around $5.69.

Between July 6, when the outbreak became national news, and September 11, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it was over, Taco Bell’s visitors remained down 12.2 percent year-over-year.

Yum! Brands, which owns Taco Bell, was optimistic during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July. Its Chief Financial Officer, Ranjith Roy, said at the time that sales declines “moderated materially” by the end of July, and that the month-over-month and day-over-day sales trends had been steadily improving.

“If you take the average sales for the last four days, we are halfway back to sales levels of the prior year, so we take some comfort in the early momentum,” he said.

He spoke at Barclays’ annual Global Consumer Staple Conference earlier in September and said that Taco Bell’s recovery is on track.

“That means sequential week-over-week improvement in sales trends,” he said. “At this point, we see several days with positive sales in the U.S., which gives us confidence in the future. There’s not a victory lap yet, but I think we have confidence that the long-term potential for Taco Bell remains unchanged.”

Roy said at the time that, despite the negative press, there had been “no change in our measure of brand love,” and insisted that customers were returning.

“The best proof point is that consumers are coming back to the restaurants on a steady basis. We’ve seen steady improvement in those sales trends,” he said.