FDA releases action plan following 2026 Cyclospora outbreaks

October 2, 2026 — Following multiple Cyclospora outbreaks this past summer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing ten planned activities to mitigate and prevent future Cyclospora outbreaks.

The agency plans to carry out these activities between now and the beginning of the 2027 growing season.

This announcement coincides with the conclusion of the agency’s multistate outbreak investigation of Cyclospora infections linked to iceberg lettuce and underscores that the FDA’s work to address Cyclospora is far from over.  

The activities the FDA plans to conduct in advance of the 2027 growing and harvesting season are focused on surveillance, outreach, and finding innovative solutions to prevent Cyclospora contamination of fresh produce.

As part of these activities, the FDA will publish an Outbreak Investigation Report that will summarize the multistate outbreak investigation and provide recommendations to help mitigate and prevent future outbreaks.

The agency also will increase surveillance of commodities historically associated with Cyclospora, conduct additional outreach and public engagement to help growers adopt practices that reduce the risk of Cyclospora contamination, and update its Cyclospora Prevention, Response and Research Action Plan to lay the groundwork for stronger prevention and response in future growing seasons.

FDA’s Planned Activities Prior to the 2027 Growing Season 

In advance of the 2027 growing and harvesting season, the FDA will increase activities focused on surveillance, outreach, and finding innovative solutions to prevent Cyclospora contamination of fresh produce.

The ten activities outlined below reflect FDA’s plans for short-term actions to mitigate risks during the 2027 growing and harvesting season and help to keep safe, nutritious produce on American tables. The FDA is committed to: 

• Publishing an Outbreak Investigation Report, which will summarize the outbreak investigation, review the potential factors contributing to the contamination of imported, shredded iceberg lettuce by Cyclospora, and provide recommendations to help prevent future outbreaks. 
• Increasing surveillance of commodities historically associated with Cyclospora, and the production of those commodities, to better inform our understanding of contamination levels and effective sampling strategies.
• Conducting more outreach and public engagement domestically and abroad to raise awareness of current and prospective food safety requirements, such as the Produce Safety Rule, the Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule, and the Food Traceability Rule, and helping to ensure that growers adopt effective practices that reduce the risk of Cyclospora in produce for American consumers.
• Enhancing laboratory capacity in Mexico to collect, analyze, and process samples for Cyclospora investigations in-country, reducing the time needed to get final laboratory analyses.
• Leveraging new and alternative data sources and tools to monitor environmental factors, such as weather events, that may lead to Cyclospora spread, and evaluating that information to determine whether it is an indicator of potential issues, while developing knowledge to build prevention strategies for the future. 
• Collaborating with Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, COFEPRIS, and SENASICA to expand food safety education and training opportunities for their fresh produce industry to strengthen Cyclospora prevention practices and reduce the risk of contamination of fresh produce. 
• Convening expert panels on worker health and hygiene, water and wastewater monitoring, and gaps that need to be addressed to improve growing and processing practices for certain fresh produce — directly targeting the conditions most likely to introduce Cyclospora into the fresh produce supply. 
• Working with CDC to enhance and align genotyping methods for Cyclospora, to create a single, replicable standard within the Federal Government, with Partner Nations, and in the industry as a whole to make it faster and easier to trace outbreaks back to their source. 
• Increasing and further leveraging Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) inspections to help ensure that importers are considering Cyclospora contamination as a part of their hazard analysis and supplier verification to ensure imported fresh produce meets U.S. safety standards. 
• Taking lessons learned from the investigation and any root cause analysis of this specific outbreak to update the Cyclospora Prevention, Response and Research Action Plan with longer-term prevention, response, research, and programmatic activities, laying the groundwork for stronger prevention and response in future growing seasons.