Deciding which veggie to throw in the cart or what to pick from the lunch menu rarely feels as high stakes as it has this summer, with recalls and foodborne illnesses capturing headlines.
The concern is valid: Federal data suggests that this is a particularly bad summer for foodborne illness outbreaks in the US. And challenges around tracing the sources of outbreaks and capturing their full scope can leave many questions unanswered.
Between 2021 and 2025, the US Food and Drug Administration investigated an average of about 25 foodborne illness outbreaks each year. This year, the agency has already posted 20 investigations and says work remains active for 18 foodborne illness clusters.
The FDA posted a dozen foodborne illness outbreak investigations within the past two months alone.
Summer is typically peak season for foodborne illness, but there haven’t been this many outbreaks in this short of a timeframe at any other point over the past five years at least.
