USDA Alert and Two Recalls Cover Wraps, Salads and Salsas Made With Recalled Jalapeños

Federal food-safety officials issued a public health alert on August 8, 2026, a date some accounts give as August 9, covering 18 ready-to-eat meat and poultry products — wraps, burritos, bowls and salads — made with jalapeño peppers that had already been recalled. Two companies then recalled grocery items of their own for the same reason: Taylor Farms posted a list of refrigerated foods on August 9, and Albertsons recalled four items.

No illness has been linked to any of it. USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture)’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which issued the alert, says there have been no confirmed reports of illness from eating the 18 products, and Taylor Farms says it is not aware of any illnesses linked to its products containing jalapeños.

The peppers are another matter, and that gap is the whole point of the alert. As of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)’s last reported count, 345 people have been sickened across 27 states, 36 have been hospitalized and no one has died; illness onsets ran from June 19 to July 20 of this year. None of those illnesses has been linked to the packaged foods on any of these lists; they trace overwhelmingly to fresh jalapeños served in restaurant food, not to anything sold in a package.

Key facts

USDA public health alert (reported August 8, 2026): 18 ready-to-eat meat and poultry products — wraps, burritos, bowls and salads — made with jalapeño peppers that had already been recalled.
Taylor Farms recall (August 9): the company’s own list of refrigerated grocery items — salsas, dips, guacamole, pico de gallo, a sandwich, a wrap, a burrito, shrimp salad and diced jalapeños.
Albertsons recall: four items of its own, salsa and corn salad, recalled voluntarily.
Illnesses tied to those three lists: none has been linked to any of them. FSIS says there have been no confirmed reports of illness from eating the 18 products, and Taylor Farms says it is not aware of any illnesses linked to its products containing jalapeños.
The separate outbreak, from fresh jalapeños: as of the CDC’s last reported count, 345 illnesses across 27 states, 36 people hospitalized and no deaths — none of it linked to the packaged foods on any of these lists.
Where each list went: the USDA alert’s reported figures run from 22 to 24 states and none is settled; the Taylor Farms grocery recall went to retail distribution centers in 26 states.
What to do with an item on any of the lists: do not eat it — throw it away, or return it to the place of purchase.
Where to ask: USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline, 888-674-6854, for the meat and poultry list; Taylor Farms consumer line, 855-455-0098, for its grocery items.

What to check, and where the lists are

Three separate lists are in play, and one package can need checking against more than one of them.

Meat and poultry items

If it is a meat or poultry item — a wrap, a burrito, a bowl, a salad with chicken — start with the USDA alert. The full list is published by the agency with the alert itself, on its recalls and public health alerts pages. Three things on the package are what you match against it:

The brand and product name, as they appear on the front.
The use-by date, printed on the label.
The establishment number — the USDA plant code carried on meat and poultry packaging, which begins with a P or an M.

If you cannot find the list, or you are holding a label and are not sure, the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline will check it with you: 888-674-6854.

Refrigerated grocery items

If it is a refrigerated grocery item — salsa, guacamole, a dip, pico de gallo, diced jalapeños, shrimp salad — start with the Taylor Farms recall, which the company publishes on the recall page of its own website. That recall also covers a sandwich, a wrap and a burrito, so a refrigerated wrap, burrito or sandwich can need checking against it as well as against the USDA alert. Albertsons’ own recall of four items, salsa and corn salad, is separate, so check that one too if you shopped at an Albertsons store. The Taylor Farms list runs item by item, each entry with its own product name, size, UPC and best-by date: the question is not whether the company makes guacamole but whether your container matches an entry, and the UPC on the back settles it. Taylor Farms’ consumer line for those items is 855-455-0098; the USDA hotline covers the meat and poultry list, not this one.

If the package says Taylor Farms

Taylor Farms appears on both lists, which is the easiest mistake to make here: it is a brand name on some of the 18 alerted meat and poultry items, and it is the company behind the separate grocery recall. If the package in your hand says Taylor Farms, check both lists — they sit under different agencies, with different phone numbers.

What to do either way

Whichever list an item is on, the instruction is the same: do not eat it. Throw it away, or return it to the place of purchase.

What the USDA alert covers

Brands named on the alerted products include:

Taylor Farms
Marketside (Walmart)
Deli Kitchen (Kroger and Dillons)
Ready Meals (Albertsons, Randalls, Tom Thumb)
Meal Simple and Higher Harvest (H-E-B)

Those chains sold them, along with Hannaford, RaceTrac and Wawa, in more than 20 states; the reported figures run from 22 to 24, and none is settled. That count is where these packaged products were shipped, not where people got sick: the outbreak’s 27 states are a separate figure. Use-by dates on the alerted items run into mid-August.

The two grocery recalls

Taylor Farms

Taylor Farms — the processor that bought the jalapeños and used them as an ingredient — posted its recall on August 9. It covers refrigerated grocery items: salsas, dips, guacamole, pico de gallo, a sandwich, a wrap, a burrito, shrimp salad and diced jalapeños, sold at Hannaford, Kroger, Stop & Shop, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Whole Foods. The company is named because it used the recalled ingredient, not because investigators have placed the contamination at its plants.

Those products went to retail distribution centers in 26 states, the company says — this recall’s own footprint, not the alert’s and not the outbreak’s. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Albertsons

Albertsons voluntarily recalled four items of its own — salsa and corn salad — in connection with the same peppers. Albertsons sells under more than one banner, and its four items have not been described beyond salsa and corn salad, so if you have either from an Albertsons-owned store, ask there whether yours is one of the four — and if it is, do not eat it: throw it away or return it to the place of purchase.

Alert or recall — the difference for you is none

USDA inspects meat and poultry; the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) handles produce, and a jalapeño is produce. That is why the peppers were recalled on the FDA side through the distributor, Food Safety News reported, while USDA’s action on the finished meat and poultry items is an alert rather than a recall. The instruction to the shopper does not change.

Where the illnesses came from

Investigators traced the outbreak to fresh jalapeños grown by a single farm in Sinaloa, Mexico, and distributed in the United States by Coast Citrus Distributors, which supplied restaurants, wholesalers and food-service companies. Of 191 patients interviewed, 177 — 93% — said they had eaten at a Mexican-style restaurant before falling ill. Neither Chipotle Mexican Grill nor QDOBA has been identified as a source of the contamination; both were among the chains those patients named, and both stopped using the implicated peppers after being notified — Chipotle from July 20, QDOBA from July 28.

Whether the peppers themselves ever reached shoppers is unsettled: FDA’s advisory as of August 6 said the distributor does not appear to supply jalapeños directly to grocery stores, while the trade publication eFoodAlert reported retail bags sold at Costco. The CDC’s guidance on the peppers is to check with the place you bought them to confirm where they came from, and not to eat recalled jalapeños at home; businesses are told not to sell or serve them and to wash and sanitize anything the peppers may have touched.

How this unfolded

June 19 to July 20 — the window of illness onsets in the outbreak, as the CDC counts it.
July 20 — Chipotle stops using the implicated peppers after being notified.
July 28 — QDOBA stops using them.
August 6 — FDA’s advisory says the distributor does not appear to supply jalapeños directly to grocery stores.
August 8, 2026 (as reported) — USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service issues the public health alert covering 18 ready-to-eat meat and poultry products.
August 9 — Taylor Farms posts its recall of refrigerated grocery items.

If you have already eaten some

Salmonella symptoms, as the CDC describes them, can include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps starting six hours to six days after exposure, with illness typically lasting four to seven days. The agency describes children under 5, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems as facing the greatest risk of severe illness.

What comes next

USDA has said it expects more downstream products to be identified as the ingredient recall works through the supply chain, so today’s “not on the list” may not be final. The CDC has said the restaurants involved no longer pose an ongoing risk now that the peppers have been pulled. The part still open is in home refrigerators, where use-by dates running into mid-August mean some of this food has not been eaten yet.