--- title: "FAQ's: The 2026 Salmonella Jalapeño Outbreak: Questions and Answers for the Public" date: 2026-08-08T08:07:00-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/faqs-the-2026-salmonella-jalapeño-outbreak-questions-and-answers-for-the-public" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Press Releases](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/press-releases) / # FAQ's: The 2026 Salmonella Jalapeño Outbreak: Questions and Answers for the Public Updated Saturday, August 8, 2026. Everything below comes from the federal pages linked in the answers, and the figures change, so check the links before relying on one. This is general information about an outbreak, not medical advice and not legal advice about anybody’s particular situation. If you are sick, call a doctor. **Where does the government discuss this outbreak?** FDA’s advisory is [Outbreak Investigation of *Salmonella*: Jalapeño (August 2026)](https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-salmonella-jalapeno-august-2026), and it carries the case counts, the state list and the distribution information. CDC has two pages: the [food safety alert](https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/outbreaks/javiana-08-26/index.html) and the [investigation update](https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/outbreaks/javiana-08-26/investigation.html) behind it. FDA also maintains a general [*Salmonella* information page](https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborne-pathogens/salmonella-salmonellosis) on the bacterium itself. **What happened?** People across the country were sickened by the same strain of *Salmonella* Javiana, and investigators traced it to fresh jalapeño peppers grown in Sinaloa, Mexico. The peppers were imported and distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors, a California company that supplies restaurants and wholesalers. FDA and CDC announced the link on August 5, 2026. **How many people are sick?** 345 people, with 36 hospitalizations, which is about twelve percent of those for whom hospitalization information was available. No deaths have been reported. Those who got sick range in age from under one year to 85, with a median age of 30. Illnesses began between June 19 and July 20, 2026, and the meals people ate ran from June 14 to July 14. **Which states have reported illnesses?** Twenty-seven: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. FDA publishes a case count map but neither agency publishes a state-by-state table, so how the 345 illnesses are distributed across those twenty-seven states is not public. FDA also says the true number of sick people is likely much higher and that the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses. **Which restaurants were involved?** Chipotle Mexican Grill and QDOBA both received peppers imported by Coast Citrus. Of 191 sick people who were interviewed, 177, or 93 percent, reported eating at a Mexican-style restaurant. Chipotle began sourcing jalapeños from a different supplier for the affected restaurants on July 20, and QDOBA stopped serving jalapeños altogether on July 28. Because that product is gone, CDC and FDA say they do not consider those chains to pose a current ongoing risk. Other restaurants that were supplied by Coast Citrus have not been publicly identified. **Should I stop eating at Chipotle or QDOBA?** Both agencies say no, and on the record in front of them that is a fair call. The implicated peppers are out of both chains, and Chipotle says its traceability system let it identify the grower and lot involved and pull exactly that product, which is the system working the way it is supposed to. The uncomfortable part is not those two chains. It is the restaurants that got the same peppers and have never been named. **Who grew them?** FDA says its traceback identified a common grower in Sinaloa that supplies Coast Citrus, and that the importer is no longer buying from that grower. FDA has named the importer. It has not named the farm. That is a choice the agency made, and it is worth noticing, because the American public is being told which distributor to avoid and not which grower. **Were these sold in grocery stores?** FDA says Coast Citrus [does not appear to supply jalapeños directly to grocery stores](https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-salmonella-jalapeno-august-2026), and that the peppers went to distributors, wholesalers, restaurants and food service companies nationwide. The agency also says it is still working out the full distribution and may announce additional recalls. In other words, that answer is not final. **There is a recall. How do I check the peppers in my kitchen?** Mostly, you cannot, and that is the honest answer. Coast Citrus agreed to recall the remaining implicated product and is contacting its customers directly. There is no consumer-facing recall announcement with lot codes, no brand name on a bag, and nothing printed on a loose jalapeño. FDA’s own advice is that if you have fresh jalapeños from Sinaloa imported by Coast Citrus, or if you are unsure who your peppers came from, throw them out, including any you froze, and then clean and sanitize whatever they touched. **What about serranos, poblanos and other peppers?** Only jalapeños from this one supply chain have been implicated. No other pepper has been named in this outbreak. It is worth knowing that in the 2008 outbreak both jalapeños and serranos were involved, so this is a family of products that has done this before, but nothing in the current record extends beyond jalapeños. **What about jarred salsa and pickled jalapeños?** Not implicated. Shelf-stable jarred and canned products are heat processed, and that heat destroys *Salmonella*. The risk in this outbreak sits with fresh peppers used raw or barely cooked. **What are the symptoms?** *Salmonella* usually makes people sick between six hours and six days after eating contaminated food, most often within twelve to 72 hours. The symptoms are diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps, and they usually last four to seven days. Most people get better without treatment. **When is it serious?** Children under five, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems are more likely to get severely ill and to need hospital care. In rare cases the bacteria get into the bloodstream and cause infections of the heart valves or of an artery. If there is blood in the stool, a fever above 102 degrees, vomiting that will not stop, or signs of dehydration, that is an emergency room, not a wait-and-see. **Can this cause lasting problems after the diarrhea stops?** Sometimes. A minority of people develop reactive arthritis, which is joint pain and swelling that can begin weeks after the infection and last months or years, and it can come with eye irritation and painful urination. Irritable bowel symptoms after a *Salmonella* infection are also well described. If you were sick and something has not gone back to normal, tell a doctor that you had a laboratory-confirmed *Salmonella* infection, because that history changes what they look for. **Should I take antibiotics?** Usually not, and that is a decision for a doctor rather than for a website. Most healthy people clear *Salmonella*without antibiotics, and in some circumstances antibiotics do not help. They are generally reserved for severe illness and for people at high risk. Do not take somebody else’s leftover prescription. **I read something about antibiotic resistance. What is that about?** CDC ran genetic analysis on samples from sick people. Most of the bacteria in this outbreak respond normally to the usual antibiotics. Two isolates did not: one showed multidrug resistance including reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin, and one showed resistance to azithromycin. That matters for the people who do need treatment, and for anyone who is already immunocompromised. **Can I catch it from another person?** *Salmonella* can pass from person to person when tiny amounts of stool reach somebody else’s mouth, which in practice means hands, shared bathrooms, diapers and kitchens. This is different from the *Cyclospora* outbreak in the news this summer, which does not spread that way. If somebody in your house is sick, wash hands seriously and keep them out of the kitchen. **Does washing peppers make them safe?** Not reliably. Rinsing removes some surface contamination, and produce washes do not sterilize anything. Bacteria can also be drawn inside a pepper through the stem scar and through cracks in the skin, where no amount of scrubbing reaches them. Cooking to 165 degrees Fahrenheit kills *Salmonella*. The risk sits in raw uses, in salsa, in a garnish, in pickled peppers that were never heated. **How many people really got sick?** Far more than 345. The long-standing federal estimate is that roughly 29 *Salmonella* illnesses occur in the community for every one that is laboratory confirmed and reported, because most people never see a doctor and most who do are never cultured. On that arithmetic this outbreak is closer to ten thousand people than to three hundred. That is an estimate, not a count, but it is the government’s own way of thinking about the gap. **Is this outbreak over?** The most recent illness onset FDA reports is July 20, and the implicated product has been pulled from the restaurants that got the most of it, which are good signs. But it takes weeks for a *Salmonella* illness to work its way through testing, interviewing and confirmation, so recent illnesses may simply not be counted yet, and FDA is still tracing where the peppers went. I would not call it over. I would call it winding down. **Has this happened before with peppers?** Twice, and the first one was a disaster. In 2008, *Salmonella* Saintpaul in jalapeño and serrano peppers from Mexico sickened 1,442 people across 43 states and the District of Columbia. Investigators chased tomatoes for weeks first, which wrecked a tomato season for growers who had done nothing wrong, before the outbreak strain turned up in a jalapeño at a Texas importer, in irrigation water on a Mexican farm, and in a serrano pepper on that same farm. In 2016, *Salmonella* Anatum in imported hot peppers sickened 32 people in nine states, and FDA had actually isolated that same strain from an Anaheim pepper months before anyone got sick. This is the third recognized outbreak of *Salmonella* in fresh peppers in American history. **Why do imported peppers keep doing this?** Water, almost always. Peppers are grown in the open, irrigated with surface water, and eaten raw. Where irrigation water carries human or animal waste, whatever is in that water ends up on the crop, and there is no cooking step between the field and the plate. That is the same argument I have been making all summer about lettuce, and it is not a coincidence that it applies here too. **I think I got sick. What should I do?** See a doctor and ask for a stool culture, which is what identifies *Salmonella* and lets the health department match your strain to the outbreak. Report it to your local health department. Write down where and when you ate, and keep receipts, credit card records and delivery orders. If you still have any of the food, keep it and do not throw it away. **Do I have a legal claim?** Possibly. A laboratory-confirmed *Salmonella* illness traced to an implicated food is generally a claim against the companies in that chain, from the grower through the restaurant, and it does not require proving anyone was careless. Marler Clark is investigating this outbreak on behalf of people who were sickened, so read that answer knowing where we sit. There is no charge to have us look and tell you whether there is anything there. We can be reached at 1-800-884-9840 or through [marlerclark.com](https://www.marlerclark.com/). **Where else should I look?** Your state health department, which in several states has published more than the federal pages have, and FDA’s [safe handling advice](https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/safe-food-handling) for cleaning up after a recalled product. 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