Vegetables on display in a grocery store on Aug. 15, 2025, in Delray Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
The cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands in the U.S. is drawing renewed attention to a decades-long shift in how fresh food moves through the country.
While investigators work to identify the original source of contamination, some food safety experts say the industry’s centralized sourcing and distribution networks after a wave of consolidation can help turn what once may have been an isolated contamination event into a multistate outbreak.
“The general trends that have taken place in the food industry, the way in which food has been sourced and then distributed has played some role here,” said Dr. David Relman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University.
The cyclospora parasite’s long incubation period, the difficulty in tracking its path and what some experts have criticized as a bumpy…
