Cantaloupe is almost perfectly designed to make people sick
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I’ve been suing people over cantaloupe for years. I’m not happy about it. But here we are — again.
Let me walk you through what three decades of depositions, hospital visits, and funerals have taught me about this fruit.
The outbreaks you should know
In 2011, Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado, shipped melons that killed 33 Americans and sickened 147 across 28 states. Nearly every single person who got sick was hospitalized. Pregnant women. Newborns. A miscarriage. All from a packinghouse where FDA investigators found pooling water on the floor, old equipment that couldn’t be properly cleaned, and truck tires — fresh from a neighboring cattle operation — rolling right through the facility. Thirty-three people died. And the owners of Jensen Farms got probation.
In 2012, Chamberlain Farms sent out cantaloupes that sickened 261 people across 24 states and killed three.
In 2023, Malichita and Rudy brand cantaloupes from Mexico sickened 595 people in the U.S. and Canada — 407 Americans in 44 states, 190 Canadians. Six Americans died. Two more Canadians. Eight people total who went to the grocery store, bought a piece of fruit, and didn’t come home. A quarter of the American patients were children under five. Nearly half were seniors over 65.
And just this year — 2026 — cantaloupe imported from Guatemala by Ayco Farms Inc. sickened at least 70 people across 25 states. The CDC didn’t even bother warning the public while the outbreak was active.
This is not bad luck. This is a pattern.
Why this keeps happening
Here’s what the food industry doesn’t want you to think too hard about: cantaloupe is almost perfectly designed to make people sick.
The netted rind acts like a bacterial sponge — it traps pathogens and protects them from sanitizers. Unlike most produce, bacteria doesn’t just sit on the surface of a cantaloupe afte