Taylor Farms has quietly become one of the most powerful companies in America’s food supply. The company now produces more than 265 million servings of fresh food every week, much of it sold without the Taylor Farms name attached. Its products reach grocery stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, and cafeterias across the country. It produces 40% of the salad kits sold in America and has grown into a $7 billion company with operations spanning multiple countries. That enormous reach means when something goes wrong, the consequences can spread nationwide. The 2026 Cyclospora outbreak put that risk on full display, sickening thousands of Americans and resulting in at least two deaths. But Taylor Farms’ power extends beyond the produce aisle. Farmers face fewer buyers, smaller suppliers struggle to compete, and the company has the resources to spend millions on political contributions and lobbying. Farm Action’s new report investigates how Taylor Farms became this powerful and what its rise reveals about consolidation across our food system. The answer goes far beyond one company or one outbreak. America needs a food system with more competition, stronger oversight, greater transparency, and more opportunities for family farmers to reach consumers: 🧵

Taylor Farms isn’t just supplying the lettuce at your local grocery store. Its reach extends to fast-food restaurants, schools, hospitals, universities, hotels, corporate cafeterias, and independent restaurants across America. Most consumers would never know that these completely different places can share the same supplier. That’s what makes consolidation in our food system so difficult to see until something goes wrong. The Cyclospora outbreak has pulled back the curtain on just how interconnected our food supply has become. A truly resilient food system should have many farmers and suppliers feeding our communities, not countless menus depending on the same few companies.

BREAKING: The Senate Ag Committee just took three landmark votes on pivotal issues for independent farmers. Pesticide immunity. Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling for beef. Corporate monopolization. Here’s what happened: First, they took one step toward delivering a huge win for farmers. A bill to restore Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling is now officially included in the Farm Bill. MCOOL empowers consumers with information on where their beef comes from, so you can support U.S. ranchers at the grocery store, and it strengthens U.S. cattle producers’ ability to compete with foreign corporations. Second, the Ag Committee delivered a devastating blow to the MAHA agenda. Senator Cory Booker’s amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s pesticide liability shield unfortunately failed on a party-line vote. Third, Senator Chuck Grassley’s amendment to codify Biden-era Packers and Stockyards Act rules also fell short. And finally, the Ag Committee did not vote on the Save Our Bacon Act, a proposal we have strongly opposed. Why? It would overturn state rules like California’s Prop 12, which banned the sale of pork raised in cruel gestation crates. Prop 12 gives independent farmers a rare market advantage over corporate producers who have not met these requirements. The Farm Bill failed to advance, however, it leaves the ultimate question up in the air: Will the final bill meaningfully address corporate concentration, strengthen competition, and expand market power for independent farmers? @SenBooker

Most Americans assume the beef they buy is labeled with where it came from. It often isn’t. Congress now has the opportunity to restore Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling by including the American Beef Labeling Act in the Farm Bill. You would think an organization called the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association would be leading that fight. Instead, NCBA is lobbying against it. That position makes a lot more sense when you realize NCBA’s corporate members include some of the world’s largest meatpackers—companies that benefit when imported beef can be sold without country-of-origin labels. The Farm Bill should give consumers the right to know where their beef comes from and give American ranchers the opportunity to distinguish their beef from imported products.

Just four companies control 58% of America’s poultry industry. Now they are keeping the rules tilted in their favor. The Trump administration is rolling back three USDA competition rules that would have given poultry growers greater transparency, stronger protections against retaliation, and safeguards against abusive payment practices. The rollback comes after the industry’s largest companies spent millions on campaign contributions, lobbying, and building influence in Washington. The result is a system where the corporations with the greatest market power also wield the greatest political influence. Family farmers deserve fair contracts, real transparency, and a government that works for them—not the corporations that dominate the industry.

One corporation donated more to President Trump’s inauguration than “Amazon, Meta, Google, and Apple combined.” And you probably haven’t even heard of them. Multinational poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride donated $5 million to Trump’s inauguration. Then, the Trump administration quietly delivered a massive blow to poultry farmers in service to Pilgrim’s Pride. Before Trump took office, the USDA had approved a new rule to fix the broken “tournament system,” a predatory structure that lets massive corporations exploit contract farmers. Under this tournament system, a corporation groups its contract farmers together, then ranks and pays them based on their chickens’ performance. But the farmers don’t own the chickens, the feed, or anything else that determines their performance. The rule change was set to go into effect this month. But Trump’s USDA delayed its implementation to December 2027. Singlestone Media’s Adam Peditto just sat down with sixth-generation farmer Craig Watts to expose the exploitation he faced as a contract farmer with Perdue and how this critical reform was crushed: “The rule was written to rein in the biggest poultry companies in America.” “Those same companies were among President Trump’s top political donors.” Watts spent 22 years as a contract farmer for Perdue. In 2014, he decided to become a whistleblower and expose the “cruelty of factory farming and the poultry giant that he was still under contract with.” Now, he’s urging people to call Congress and demand a fairer Farm Bill that protects contract farmers from predatory corporate practices like the tournament system. “Call your representatives.” “It took us probably six decades to get here, so we got a little work to [do to] get back out.” “But the only way you get out of a hole is quit digging.” We just published a new blog breaking down how the biggest poultry companies turned their control over the market into political power. Read it below:🧵 @CraigWcafarms92 @SRAProject

“I’ve seen communities, the fabric just ripped out of them.” “Now… there [are] tumbleweeds.” “The windows are boarded up.” “That’s industrial poultry.” “They extract way more than they ever contribute.” Craig Watts is a sixth-generation farmer in Fairmont, North Carolina. For 22 years, he was a contract farmer for Perdue. He just sat down with Singlestone Media’s Adam Peditto to expose the injustice and brutality of contract farming in the poultry industry. “Companies such as Perdue and Tyson will find an area that’s business-friendly to build a processing plant.” “They will go and contract with local farmers to build the buildings, and then they will bring their birds, and the farmers will actually raise the birds.” “To build those barns, initially I took out a 10-year loan.” “It cost me $200,000 to build the first two.” “Then a couple of years later… two more.” “My income did not double, but my expenses more than doubled.” “So I had $400,000 of debt at that time.” “To get that, you had to have collateral, which was our family farm.” “These guys… are about control.” “If they can control their costs with that tournament system, they can keep you in debt and control you.” Peditto broke down this tournament system and how it traps farmers into a system of total corporate control: “Contract farmers enter a tournament group with other farmers whose chickens are processed at the same slaughterhouse during a set period.” “They are then ranked by the company and paid against one another based on performance.” Contract farmers’ income depends on the performance of their chickens. But the farmers “don’t actually own the feed, the medication, or even the chickens themselves.” President Biden’s USDA approved a new rule designed to protect contract farmers from the predatory tournament system. It was set to go into effect this month. Until President Trump’s USDA postponed its implementation to December 2027. We fully supported this new rule that would have gone a long way to fix the broken tournament system. This is a vital reform to defend contract farmers from corporate control. And we urge the Trump administration to implement it as soon as possible. Our new blog provides an in-depth look into how the four biggest poultry companies bought influence in the Trump administration, and why contract farmers deserve better from elected leaders. Read it below:🧵 @CraigWcafarms92 @SRAProject