The foods behind the outbreaks FSMA 204 is built to trace
The FDA Food Traceability List is not a random set of groceries. Every food on it earned its place with a documented record of foodborne illness that investigators struggled to trace back to a source. Here is that record, food by food, and why the rule asks for records that can be pulled in 24 hours.
Listeria in cantaloupe from a single Colorado grower killed 33 people across 28 states and sickened 147. It was the deadliest US foodborne outbreak in decades. Melons are on the traceability list because of records like this.
Source: CDC, MMWR 60(39), 2011. Checked July 12, 2026.Foodborne illness in the United States is not rare, and a handful of foods drive the outbreaks hardest to trace. The list below turns two decades of CDC and FDA investigations into the case for why each food is covered.
The FDA scored foods on seven risk criteria, then listed the worst
FSMA Section 204 told the FDA to base the Food Traceability List on risk, not opinion. The agency built a Risk-Ranking Model for Food Tracing that scores each food-and-hazard pair on seven criteria. Foods that combine frequent outbreaks, severe illness, and easy contamination rose to the top, and those are the foods now on the list.
Outbreaks and illnesses
How often the food causes outbreaks and how many people it makes sick.
Severity of illness
How serious the illness is, including hospitalization and death rates.
Likelihood of contamination
How prone the food is to picking up a pathogen along the way.
Growth potential
Whether a pathogen can multiply in the food, weighed against shelf life.
Process controls
Whether manufacturing steps reliably reduce the hazard across the industry.
Consumption
How much of the food people eat, which sets how far an outbreak spreads.
Cost of illness
The economic burden the illnesses place on the public.
Source: FDA, Risk-Ranking Model for Food Tracing (RRM-FT), the science-based tool used to designate the Food Traceability List. See the FDA Food Traceability List page. Checked July 12, 2026.
How many people each food made sick in the outbreak that built its case
Every food on the list carries a signature outbreak or a run of them. The bars show reported illnesses from the landmark CDC or FDA investigation behind each listed food. Longer bars are not automatically deadlier: cantaloupe's bar is short at 147 illnesses, but 33 of those people died.
The same foods keep coming back, year after year
Plotting the notable outbreaks from 2008 onward shows the pattern the risk model was built to catch. Salmonella in produce and nut butter, E. coli in leafy greens, and Listeria in cantaloupe, cheese, and packaged salad recur across the years. The color shows the pathogen; the dot size grows with the death toll.
The Food Traceability List, mapped to why each food is on it
Every category on the FDA Food Traceability List, the main pathogen behind its listing, the outbreak record that made the case, and a source you can check. Search by food or pathogen, and sort any column.
| Food ▼ | Main pathogen ▼ | Illnesses ▼ | Deaths ▼ | Window ▼ | Why it is listed ▼ | Source |
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The 2008 pepper outbreak shows what happens without traceable records
When a food makes people sick across dozens of states, investigators have to work backward through the supply chain to find the source before more product ships. When the records do not connect, that takes weeks, the wrong food gets blamed, and the outbreak grows. FSMA 204 is built to close that gap with a lot code that links every step.
In the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, tomatoes were blamed first. Investigators spent weeks before jalapeno and serrano peppers grown and packed in Mexico were identified as the real source. By then 1,442 people across 43 states were sick and 286 were hospitalized. The chain of custody had breaks where no record tied one step to the next.
Under the rule, a traceability lot code is assigned once and recorded at every Critical Tracking Event as the food moves. Each step keeps the Key Data Elements that tie it to the step before and after. When the FDA asks, a covered business must produce those records, as an electronic sortable spreadsheet, within 24 hours. The chain reads end to end, so the source is found in days, not weeks.
Sources: CDC, MMWR 57(34), 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak; 21 CFR 1.1325 to 1.1455 for the Critical Tracking Events, Key Data Elements, and the 24-hour records rule. Checked July 12, 2026.
How we built this, and what it does not claim
This feature maps each category on the FDA Food Traceability List to the outbreak record most responsible for its listing. For each food we took the landmark CDC or FDA investigation, or a published multi-year outbreak study, and recorded the reported illnesses, deaths, hospitalizations, and states affected exactly as those agencies reported them. Nothing here is estimated or invented. Where a figure could not be verified against a named CDC or FDA source, we did not include a number and instead show the hazard and the qualitative reason the food is on the list.
What this is not. The illness counts are not a like-for-like ranking. Some come from a single outbreak in a single year (cucumbers in 2015, shell eggs in 2010), and others come from a decade or two of outbreaks pooled together (leafy greens from 2009 to 2018, tomatoes from 1990 to 2010). A food with a smaller number here is not automatically safer, and a larger number is not automatically deadlier, as the cantaloupe example makes plain. Read the window on every figure. Reported illnesses also understate the true total, because most foodborne illness is never lab-confirmed or reported.
Why it still holds up. The point is not to rank the foods against each other. It is to show that each listed food has a real, repeated, hard-to-trace outbreak history, which is exactly the risk profile the FDA's Risk-Ranking Model was built to flag. The "10,000 plus illnesses" figure in the hero is the sum of the individually cited counts shown below, across their stated windows, and is presented as that sum, not as an annual rate.
Decaying facts. The FDA can revise the Food Traceability List, and the compliance date rests on current law. As at July 12, 2026, the FDA will not enforce the rule before July 20, 2028. Check the dated facts on our sources page before relying on them.
Sources
- CDC
Estimates of foodborne illness in the United States (48 million a year)cdc.gov - FDA
Food Traceability List and the Risk-Ranking Model for Food Tracingfda.gov - CDC MMWR 60(39)
Listeriosis linked to Jensen Farms cantaloupe, 2011 (147 ill, 33 deaths)cdc.gov - CDC / Emerg. Infect. Dis. 2020
STEC outbreaks linked to leafy greens, 2009 to 2018 (40 outbreaks, 1,212 ill, 8 deaths)cdc.gov - CDC MMWR 57(34)
Salmonella Saintpaul linked to peppers, 2008 (1,442 ill, 286 hospitalized, 2 deaths)cdc.gov - CDC
Salmonella Poona linked to imported cucumbers, 2015 (907 ill, 4 deaths, 40 states)cdc.gov - CDC
Salmonella Typhimurium linked to peanut products, 2008 to 2009 (714 ill, 9 deaths)cdc.gov - CDC
Salmonella Enteritidis linked to shell eggs, 2010 (1,609 confirmed ill, about 550 million eggs recalled)cdc.gov - CDC / Epidemiol. Infect.
Raw tomato Salmonella outbreaks, 1990 to 2010 (15 outbreaks, 1,959 ill, 3 deaths)ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - FDA
Salmonella outbreaks linked to imported papayas, 2011 to 2019 (8 outbreaks, about 500 ill, 2 deaths)fda.gov - CDC
Listeria linked to Rizo Lopez queso fresco and cotija cheese, 2014 to 2024 (26 ill, 2 deaths)cdc.gov - CDC / Emerg. Infect. Dis. 2019
Listeria linked to Dole packaged salads, 2015 to 2016 (19 US ill, all hospitalized, 1 death)cdc.gov - CDC NORS, via PIRG Education Fund 2025
Sprout-associated outbreaks, 2000 to 2020 (53 outbreaks, 1,498 ill, 5 deaths)pirg.org - CDC
E. coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce (Yuma), 2018 (210 ill, 5 deaths, 36 states)cdc.gov
Do these foods pass through your business?
If you manufacture, process, pack, or hold any food on this list, FSMA 204 can reach you. Answer two questions to see whether you are covered, which tracking events apply to your role, and the records you will need to keep.
This feature is educational and cites public CDC and FDA sources. It is not legal advice or an official compliance determination.