The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is urging people to avoid buying a certain product due to fears of it being linked to an E. coli outbreak. THE FDA said that at least seven people in California, Texas and Florida have become sick by E. coli food poisoning and that Raw Farm cheddar cheese is the “likely source.”
Even though no Raw Farm products have tested positive for E. coli during the outbreak period, the FDArecommendedthatRaw Farm voluntarily remove its raw cheese products from the shelves. The company declined the suggestion.
Between September 2025 and mid-February 2026, seven illnesses were reported – five cases in California and one each in Texas and Florida. More than half of the illnesses affected children aged 3 and younger and two people were hospitalized.
The owner of Raw Farm, MarkMcAfee,saidhisrefusal to recall the products stems to no concrete evidence that that cheese is the source of the sickness.
““They have found no pathogens in any of our products,” McAfee said in an interview.
McAfee said the outbreak announcement was premature and disputed the FDA’s claims that the cases were genetically linked.
The FDA noted that they interviewed three of the affected people and the common denominator was they had all three reported eating Raw Farm brand raw milk cheddar cheese. The FDA also said samples from the sick patients were analyzedandshowedthatthe E. coli isolates that caused the infections were closely genetically related.
FDA officials are working to gather information from the additional cases and the investigation continues to try and determine the source of contamination and other possible products.