Do Taylor Farms field workers get bathroom breaks? Claim spreads among cyclosporiasis outbreak

After federal authorities tied Taylor Farms to an outbreak of cyclosporiasis — a foodborne illness that causes "explosive diarrhea" — in July 2026, social media users claimed that the produce company does not allow its crop harvesters to take bathroom breaks. 

The rumor circulated on X, Threads and Facebook (screenshotted). Snopes readers contacted us to ask about it. 

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union representing Taylor Farms production plant workers — not farmworkers — in California, has repeatedly alleged that the company has denied workers access to bathrooms. While federal authorities have found food and labor safety violations at Taylor Farms locations, there's no publicly available evidence that any of these inspections have discovered that the company has denied its crop harvesters bathroom breaks. 

We have left this claim unrated because we found no definitive proof supporting or disproving the allegations. 

We reached out to the Teamsters and a union in Mexico that represents Taylor Farms agricultural workers to ask for more information and await a response. 

Cyclospora, the parasite that causes cyclosporiasis, spreads when infected human feces contaminates food or water. As such, it is possible that this rumor may have also circulated because people assumed that in order for cyclospora to spread, workers must have been forced to defecate in the fields. 

However, there are many other reasons that food can get contaminated with human feces, including workers not washing their hands, polluted stormwater runoff, improperly treated or untreated wastewater and more. 

Taylor Farms did not return an inquiry about the company's bathroom policies. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Taylor Farms said in a July 17 comment that all of its farm workers "have access to clean restrooms, water, and breaks." 

"Healthy, respected workers are the heart of our business," the comment said.

Snopes previously looked into an associated claim that the CEO of Taylor Farms donated to U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid produce inspections. 

Worker allegations

Lawsuits and testimony Teamsters gathered from individual workers indicated that Taylor Farms workers have alleged various labor violations. Most of these documents contain no allegations about bathroom breaks. Instead, they claim that the company was denying scheduled rest and meal breaks, which are separate from bathroom breaks in federal labor law. 

However, the Teamsters have also repeatedly alleged that Taylor Farms has failed to provide workers with adequate access to bathrooms.

A 2013 news release from the Teamsters claimed that Taylor Farms pressures workers "to not use the restroom during their shifts." A 2014 news release from the Teamsters said, simply, "Workers are denied breaks to use the bathroom." 

A Teamsters document from 2018 also alleged that employees "are denied adequate bathrooms and break facilities to accommodate the number of workers" (see Page 3). 

We found no evidence that the Teamsters have made such allegations since 2018, meaning it was unclear if these alleged issues were still happening as of this writing. The Teamsters have filed at least three complaints about Taylor Farms to the National Rights Labor Board between 2024 and July 2026, but none of these complaints focused on bathroom breaks. 

There was no indication that farmworkers have made similar allegations, although that may be because no Taylor Farms crop harvesters in the United States appear to be unionized. 

Google searches in English and Spanish also returned no credible news investigations about Taylor Farms denying workers bathroom breaks. 

No official documentation of bathroom break denials 

Taylor Farms has agricultural growing locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico (see Page 18 of a 2025 report). All three countries have laws requiring that workers have access to bathroom facilities. In the United States, farm laborers who work more than three hours a day must have access to bathrooms. 

The U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration often release notices of significant settlements or fines. However, a search of the U.S. Department of Labor's website and the OSHA website found no evidence that federal inspectors have cited Taylor Farms for violating bathroom regulations, as of this writing. 

OSHA also has a database of its enforcement inspections. A search for Taylor Farms in the OSHA database found that federal authorities have found dozens of violations at the company's facilities for serious safety hazards leading to injury, lack of protective personal equipment and more. However, a Snopes review of all violations in the past three years found nothing related to bathroom breaks or facilities. 

A search of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration database of inspection data found that federal authorities have cited Taylor Farms locations at least 57 times for issues with the company's practices. Some of the descriptions of the citations reference a lack of sanitary conditions, but none of the available citation information specifically indicated that Taylor Farms has denied bathroom breaks to any workers.

Snopes filed a public records request with the FDA seeking more details about these citations. We await a response; the FDA denied our request for expedited records on the grounds that there was no "imminent threat" to the physical safety of an individual or "an urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged" government activity. 

Similarly, Canada keeps online lists of companies that have violated the country's labor laws; a search of those lists did not find any mentions of Taylor Farms. A Snopes reporter who is fluent in Spanish was unable to find any similar databases for Mexico. 

The three North American countries have also committed to certain enforceable labor standards in a free-trade pact known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. While the USMCA does not directly address sanitary safety, in the past, these investigations have reportedly revealed broader concerns such as employers allegedly denying employees bathroom breaks. However, we found no evidence Taylor Farms has ever been cited in a USMCA case. 

Past Taylor Farms foodborne illness inspections 

Authorities have previously tied Taylor Farms to outbreaks of past foodborne illnesses that can spread via fecal matter, including an E. coli outbreak in 2024, possible listeria contamination in 2017 and a 2013 cyclosporiasis outbreak in Iowa and Nebraska. 

In 2025, CBS News obtained a 2024 FDA inspection report with partial redactions that found sanitation violations at a Taylor Farms food production facility in Colorado. However, none of the unredacted descriptions in the 10-page report said anything about bathroom breaks. 

The FDA also sometimes releases investigation outbreak reports that attempt to trace contamination in foodborne outbreaks. A review of the publicly available reports found that the FDA has only released one naming Taylor Farms: A 2013 report about the Iowa and Nebraska cyclosporiasis outbreak. 

According to that report, the FDA found no issue with the bathrooms at multiple ranches in Guanajuato, Mexico, where the salad mix under investigation was grown. Here's the relevant description in the report (see Page 6): 

All five of the ranches assessed as part of this [environmental assessment] utilize self-contained portable restrooms that include hand washing stations. One ranch also had a permanent restroom with a subterranean cement septic tank. 

[ ... ]

The portable restrooms are serviced on a regular schedule when in use with the frequency depending upon the size of the work crew; service records are maintained on the restrooms ... The [environmental assessment] team did not observe any potential route of contamination from any of the observed onsite sanitary facilities to any irrigation water systems or growing fields.

The report said that irrigation water samples at all five ranches also tested negative for cyclospora (see Page 7). 

The FDA concluded on Page 13 that the hand-washing faucets on the portable toilets could have caused cross-contamination and that additional research into cyclospora in the region was necessary. 

In sum ... 

There are many ways cyclospora can end up contaminating fresh produce, and just because authorities have linked Taylor Farms to the cyclosporiasis outbreak does not mean its workers are forced to defecate in the fields. In fact, according to an FDA report of a previous cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to Taylor Farms, the irrigation water from ranches at the center of the outbreak tested negative for cyclospora. 

Still, the company has faced numerous allegations of worker abuse and labor violations, including claims from the Teamsters that Taylor Farms managers have previously denied bathroom breaks to production plant employees. However, federal inspections have not turned up any evidence that the company has denied bathroom breaks to agricultural laborers at Taylor Farms locations. Thus, we have not rated this claim. 

Snopes reporter Anna Rascoüet-Paz contributed to this report. 

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