The Scoop: Taylor Farms has another food-borne illness outbreak

Continuing its horrible run of food safety and PR, Taylor Farms has announced a new outbreak of food-borne illness. This one is distinct from the lettuce-related cyclospora outbreak that has seized the nation for the last month and instead involves jalapeños and salmonella.

According to a notice posted on their website:

The FDA and CDC, in collaboration with state and local partners, are investigating illnesses in a multistate outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to fresh jalapeños supplied by Coast Citrus Distributors. A grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, that supplies to Coast Citrus Distributors was identified as the potential source in this outbreak.

Taylor Fresh Foods is no longer sourcing products from this farmer and will be filling orders from alternative suppliers.

This statement remains confusing as Taylor Farms never clarifies who Coast Citrus Distributors is or what their connection to Taylor Farms is. It appears that a farmer supplied jalapeños to Coast Citrus Distributors, which Taylor Farms later sold for use in finished products like salsa, but the connection is unclear.

The notice also included a section at the bottom on “Our Food Safety Commitment,” outlining how produce undergoes “rigorous testing” and regular audits.

Why it matters: Taylor Farms needs to do much more right now to restore trust.

The cyclospora outbreak, ensuing bickering with the FDA about whether or not an apology had been issued, did the company no favors. But having a second outbreak of foodborne illness in such a short period of time means that simply saying how you protect the food people eat is no longer enough.

The last interview Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor gave appears to be emailed statements to Forbes on July 24. It does not appear that other leaders or subject matter experts from Taylor Farms have made significant public appearances or interviews either, leaving the public to fill in the gaps.

Time is running out to rebuild public trust.

The company may well survive this crisis — while it does sell branded products, much of its sales are made directly to stores or manufacturers for processing or white labeling. Customers may not be able to avoid buying their produce. But twin food safety crises in such close proximity show a deep problem that the company needs to address. What went wrong? What will they change? What is safe? These are the questions that need answers, today and into the future.

How is Mark Zuckerberg positioning Meta’s AI?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a lengthy essay laying out where he sees Meta AI operating in the growing artificial intelligence ecosystem. Zuckerberg wants to position AI as something that adds to people’s lives and brings advancement rather than discussing job-killing or even world-killing possibilities. He wants to make Meta AI available to everyone rather than focusing on government or industry as many tech rivals are.

Indeed, “everyone” is a common refrain in the essay, with every bullet in a section on how Meta will serve AI beginning with that word.

Meta needed to do something to differentiate itself from the AI rivals who currently have more buzz and higher adoption. The essay, while lengthy, is very clear about how Meta wants to be seen and what it wants to achieve. Hearing the vision laid out so clearly will help Meta — though whether it can execute on those aims remains to be seen.

How has having the pope for a fan impacted the White Sox?

The White Sox, Chicago’s less famous baseball team, has seen a major boom from an unlikely source: the pope.

Before he was Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost was just a normal Chicago-born baseball fan. But since his ascension to the throne of St. Peter, his chosen baseball team has been capitalizing (respectfully) on their most famous fan.

The New York Times reports that they have to move carefully and respectfully — while a pope bobblehead was a great idea, the Vatican wouldn’t go for it. But three of the team’s top 10 best-performing social posts in 2025 were related to the pope. A mass held in conjunction with the Archdiocese of Chicago saw 35,000 attendees — double the attendance at an average game. And a giveaway of pope miters (that’s the hat) was a huge hit.

This is the kind of event you can never anticipate or prepare for, but which you can take advantage of. By working closely with the archdiocese to be respectful to the religion, the Sox can bring in new fans, amuse old ones and stay in the news for something besides their record — though they’re winning their division so far.

X reboots its revenue sharing program

X is changing how it pays creators on its platform.

Allegra Jacchia, who works in creator rewards at X, said in a tweet that the existing program “had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned. Creators should be focused on bringing net new content to the platform instead of maximizing payouts. We could have kept adding more rules and exceptions, but ultimately the better decision was to start fresh and build a program designed from day one to reward originality.”

The new program says it rewards originality. There are other rules too — you must have at least 500 verified (read: paid) followers and at least 500,000 verified timeline views in the last 90 days. But the main gist of the new program is rewarding work — which can range from original reporting to a new meme you made. The word “meaningfully” appears throughout the rules, urging people to go deeper in their commentary or transformation of existing content to qualify.

Paying people for content will always lead some to the laziest route to a payout. But X is clearly trying to lift the level of what it rewards. That could be a boost to journalists or help brands find new creators to partner with.

Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.