Current US Foodborne Outbreaks
Where can I see current foodborne illness outbreaks in the US?
The two official places to check are the CDC's Current Outbreaks page, which covers multistate outbreaks and their public health side, and the FDA's Investigations of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks table, which covers FDA-regulated foods and lists each outbreak by product.
Approach: I opened the CDC and FDA outbreak pages today, October 12, 2026.
CDC, Current Outbreaks (last reviewed October 7, 2026)
- Active multistate investigations: 16 Salmonella, 8 E. coli (Shiga toxin-producing), 6 Listeria and 1 Campylobacter.
- The CDC says it usually coordinates 17 to 40 multistate investigations each week. Not every investigation gets a public outbreak notice.
- The page links to individual outbreak notices, to pages on less common germs (Cyclospora, Hepatitis A, Shigella, Vibrio) and to the NORS Dashboard. The dashboard holds all foodborne outbreaks reported to the CDC since 1998.
FDA, Investigations of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks (CORE Response Team table; latest "What's New" entry October 5, 2026, on E. coli O145:H28 in frozen blueberries)
Each row has a reference number, the pathogen, the product, a case count and a status. Some of the investigations still marked active and ongoing:
| Posted | Ref # | Pathogen | Product | Cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/30/2026 | 1415 | Listeria monocytogenes | Not yet identified | 11 |
| 9/25/2026 | 1419 | E. coli O26:H11 | Raw milk cheese | not given |
| 9/23/2026 | 1421 | E. coli O157:H7 | Multi-ingredient chicken wrap | 38 |
| 9/23/2026 | 1417 | Listeria monocytogenes | Not yet identified | 44 |
| 9/10/2026 | 1411 | Salmonella Bovismorbificans | Sprouts | not given |
| 8/26/2026 | 1403 | Salmonella Newport | Not yet identified | 116 |
| 8/19/2026 | 1394 | E. coli and Salmonella Agona | Alfalfa sprouts | not given |
| 7/22/2026 | 1379 | Listeria monocytogenes | Not yet identified | 11 |
| 7/8/2026 | 1387 | Salmonella Oranienburg | Not yet identified | 99 |
The FDA table also keeps investigations marked "Active/Ended" (several Cyclospora clusters, Salmonella Javiana in jalapeño peppers, and others), so filter on status when you want only open cases. I've left the frozen blueberries investigation out of the table because I didn't confirm its row; it appears only in the "What's New" note above.
I can also pull FDA CORE investigation records or CDC NORS outbreak reports by pathogen, product, state or year if you want something more targeted.
Sources:
How is that different from the NORS outbreak data?
NORS is the CDC's historical record of outbreaks that have been reported and closed. The CDC and FDA pages from my last answer track investigations that are still open. NORS has one summary record per outbreak, including single-state ones, and it covers more than food (person-to-person, water, animal contact). The CDC and FDA pages cover only the multistate and FDA-regulated food investigations that the agencies have chosen to publish, while they are underway.
Approach: I looked at sample records from the CDC NORS outbreak data and the FDA CORE investigation table in the datasets, and compared them with the CDC and FDA pages from my last answer.
| CDC/FDA current-outbreak pages | NORS | |
|---|---|---|
| When it's useful | Open investigations, updated as they go | After the fact; the CDC page describes the NORS Dashboard as holding outbreaks reported since 1998. The earliest record I found is from 1998 [1] and the latest from 2023. I found nothing for 2024 to 2026. |
| Which outbreaks | Multistate (CDC) or FDA-regulated foods (FDA), and only some of them get a public notice | Outbreaks in a single state as well as multistate ones, which are labelled "Multistate" [2] |
| How they spread | Food only | Food, plus person-to-person (e.g. norovirus) [3], water (e.g. cyanotoxins) [4], animal contact (e.g. Cryptosporidium parvum) [5] and environmental contamination [6] |
| What a record tells you | FDA: reference number, pathogen, product, case count, investigation and outbreak status, and checkmarks for the regulatory steps taken (traceback, on-site inspection, sampling, recall) [7] | Epidemiology: year and month, state, how it spread, the cause and whether it was confirmed, setting, illnesses, hospitalizations, deaths, food vehicle and IFSAC food category. For example, a 2023 Florida outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes (confirmed) at a buffet restaurant: 4 ill, 4 hospitalized, 0 deaths, cut produce [8] |
| Product and company detail | FDA names the product and links to its advisories and recalls | Only a generic food vehicle (e.g. "cut produce"); no brands, firms or recalls |
You can't look up one outbreak from one source in the other. The investigations on the current pages aren't in NORS yet. Even when they are reported, NORS has no FDA reference number to match on, so you would have to line records up by cause, year and food. For example, FDA reference 1421 (the E. coli O157:H7 chicken wrap) isn't in the FDA table I can search either, so that copy is older than the live FDA page I opened last time.
Use the current pages to see what's open now and what has been recalled. Use NORS for trends, such as outbreaks by cause, food category, setting or state over the years. I can pull NORS figures by cause, state, year or food category if you'd like.
Which foods caused the most outbreaks recently?
In the CDC's NORS data for 2021–2023 (the latest years it holds), raw oysters and other molluscs were behind the most outbreaks from a single food category: 67 outbreaks. Next came chicken (49), fish (48), dairy (39, mostly raw milk) and leafy and other row-crop vegetables (38). Counting illnesses instead of outbreaks gives a different order. A few very large produce outbreaks, onions and cantaloupe in particular, made more people sick than dozens of small oyster or fish outbreaks.
Approach: I pulled every foodborne outbreak report in CDC NORS for 2021, 2022 and 2023, 1,614 in total, and counted them by the IFSAC food category CDC assigns. NORS does not yet hold 2024–2026. Two caveats: 996 of the 1,614 outbreaks (62%) have no food category reported, and another 234 are coded "Multiple" (mixed dishes). So the ranking below covers only the minority of outbreaks where a single food category was identified. I also found no records filed under New Jersey, New Mexico, West Virginia or DC.
Single-food categories by number of outbreaks, 2021–2023 combined
| IFSAC category | Outbreaks (2021 / 2022 / 2023) | Illnesses | Main causes recorded | Largest outbreak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mollusks | 67 (24 / 23 / 20) | 842 | Vibrio parahaemolyticus (25), norovirus | 2022 multistate, norovirus, oysters, 322 ill [9] |
| Chicken | 49 (15 / 18 / 16) | 994 | Campylobacter jejuni (13), Salmonella (13) | 2022 Maryland, chicken livers, 203 ill [10] |
| Fish | 48 (15 / 13 / 20) | 215 | Scombroid toxin (22), ciguatoxin (19) | 2022 multistate, Salmonella, raw salmon, 39 ill [11] |
| Dairy | 39 (10 / 9 / 20) | 339 | Campylobacter (most), STEC | 2021 New Hampshire, raw milk, 54 ill [12] |
| Vegetable row crops (leafy greens) | 38 (13 / 11 / 14) | 812 | STEC (11), Cyclospora (11) | 2022 multistate, STEC, romaine, 109 ill [13] |
| Beef | 27 (8 / 9 / 10) | 805 | Salmonella, C. perfringens, STEC | 2023 Montana, beef brisket, 243 ill [14] |
| Pork | 20 (3 / 8 / 9) | 542 | Salmonella | 2023 Florida, pork, 118 ill [15] |
| Fruits | 19 (6 / 8 / 5) | 794 | Salmonella, hepatitis A | 2023 multistate, cantaloupe, 407 ill [16] |
| Grains-beans | 11 | 249 | Bacillus cereus (rice) | 2023 Pennsylvania, rice, 80 ill [17] |
| Seeded vegetables | 10 | 308 | Salmonella (tomatoes) | 2022 multistate, tomatoes, 102 ill [18] |
What stands out
- Oysters are the top single food. 64 outbreaks name oysters as the food vehicle, and the count holds steady at about 20 a year (23, 22, 19).
- Raw milk is rising. 33 outbreaks name raw or unpasteurized milk or cheese. The dairy category doubled to 20 outbreaks in 2023, up from 10 in 2021 and 9 in 2022.
- Produce dominates illness counts. Root vegetables had only 4 outbreaks, but one was a 2021 multistate Salmonella outbreak linked to onions with 1,040 ill and 260 hospitalized [19]. Onions were also behind two more multistate Salmonella outbreaks in 2023 [20][21]. Fruits (mostly cantaloupe) caused 248 hospitalizations from 19 outbreaks, more than any single category except "Multiple".
- Mixed dishes ("Multiple") are the biggest group overall: 234 outbreaks and 5,082 ill. Examples are a 2021 Kentucky B. cereus outbreak from chili, beans and chicken (324 ill) [22] and a 2022 multistate Salmonella outbreak from submarine sandwiches (280 ill) [23].
For 2024–2026 there is no NORS data yet. The live CDC and FDA outbreak pages from earlier are the only current view, and sprouts, raw milk cheese and frozen blueberries appear among the open FDA investigations there. I can break any category down by pathogen, setting or state, or chart the year-by-year trend, if that would help.