A run of high-profile US food recalls in 2026 — including contaminated lettuce, over a million eggs, jalapeño-based products, frozen berries and fruit bars — has left shoppers feeling that recalls are spiralling out of control. Experts say public attention has genuinely increased, driven by heavier media and social media coverage, but the underlying data does not clearly show more recalls than in previous years, making it hard to say whether the problem itself is worsening or simply more visible.

Figures from the Poynter Institute show 122 food and beverage recalls in the US as of 31 July 2026, compared with 135 over the same period in 2025 and 146 in 2024, suggesting no dramatic rise in overall recall numbers. However, food safety specialists note that some individual incidents have been unusually large, such as a lettuce-linked cyclospora outbreak that sickened more than 9,000 people, potentially making it the third-biggest foodborne illness outbreak on record. Analysts caution that a handful of very large recalls can expose far more people than many smaller ones, and warn that constant recall coverage risks turning "recall fatigue" into broader "trust fatigue" among consumers.