Taco Bell entered the second half of July with a parasite outbreak interrupting more than two years of momentum. On July 28th, it offered its Mexican Pizza — usually priced at more than $5 — for $1, in an effort to drive engagement. Transaction growth turned positive that day for the first time in more than two weeks and average ticket dropped to the lowest level of the summer. Consumer Edge credit and debit card data shows what the promotion did, who showed up for it, and where the share came from.
The outbreak
Federal health officials linked a cyclosporiasis outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. More than 1,600 people who got sick reported eating at Taco Bell in those states.
Consumer Edge credit and debit card data showed Taco Bell’s daily sales down as much as 30+% year-over-year in the middle of July, with salad-focused chains also experiencing sharp decelerations.
Those declines followed a period of strength for Taco Bell: the data showed the chain gaining market share within the limited-service restaurant industry across age and income groups almost uninterrupted for more than two years. In addition, Taco Bell gained share of transactions over $30, suggesting its value-driven bundles have continued to resonate even on larger orders.
Taco Bell employed different strategies to revive sales momentum, one of which was the $1 Mexican Pizza promotion on July 28th.
Transaction growth accelerated, ticket growth decelerated
On July 28th, Taco Bell’s YoY transaction growth accelerated by more than 20 percentage points compared to the 27th, turning positive for the first time since reports about the Cyclospora outbreak became widespread. Unsurprisingly given the discounted deal, average transaction size decelerated sharply, declining double digits to its lowest level of the period.
Value chains gave up share, but traffic losses were shallow
Share change in raw percentage points is dominated by size. McDonald’s accounts for nearly a third of transactions across these 30 chains, so it tops any share-loss table on weight alone, on a day that barely registered for the chain. Dividing each brand’s change by its own starting share adjusts for that and answers a more useful question: relative to its own size, who felt this?
Ranked that way, the list skews toward value and pizza, consistent with the idea that a $1 offer would pull disproportionately from those categories. Little Caesars, Popeyes and Bojangles sit at the top, followed by Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Whataburger, Panda Express, Panera, Jack in the Box and Pizza Hut. McDonald’s lands mid-pack.
However, the worst of QSR traffic declines had already passed. On its earnings call, Taco Bell pointed to the weekend before July 21st as the bottom, and our data shows category traffic was up slightly week over week from there, so most chains gave up share without giving up much traffic. Little Caesars, top of the donor list, lost just under 5% of its own transactions, while Popeyes lost 3%. Meanwhile, McDonald’s was down 0.5%, and Burger King, Wendy’s, Five Guys and Zaxby’s all saw positive traffic between July 21st and July 28th.
Half the diners never left, while many others returned for the promotion
The $1 Mexican Pizza was primarily a loyalty and re-engagement event rather than an acquisition event. It mostly reached people who were already coming, and it reached them on a day when Taco Bell needed the traffic number to turn. Grouping July 28th customers by when they last bought before that day splits the day three ways:
- 51% had bought at some point between July 12 and July 27, after the Cyclospora headlines. These were existing Taco Bell customers who continued purchasing after the outbreak headlines surfaced. The $1 Mexican Pizza promotion was an added bonus.
- 28% had bought between June 1 and July 11 and then nothing until the July 28th promotion. These are customers whose purchases paused as the news surfaced and who returned for the promotion.
- 21% were already gone before the news, with a last purchase before June 1 or nothing at all in the past twelve months. These can be considered lapsed and regained or genuinely new.
How business leaders use this data
- Restaurant operators measure a promotion within days of running it — daily transactions, average ticket and share against a named competitive set — instead of waiting for the next quarterly print.
- Marketing teams separate a loyalty event from an acquisition event by grouping promotion-day buyers on when they last purchased, then track whether the people who came for the offer came back afterward.
- Strategy teams see which competitors gave up share and which held it through a rival’s offer, and can cut the same read by age, income and geography to test whether a price point moved the customer mix.
Notes: Consumer Edge Perseus USA Panel, queried 18 August 2026; panel data complete through 11 August 2026. Daily spend, transaction and average ticket series come from the Apollo eMax aggregate panel; customer-level cohort work comes from the Apollo ConstInd individual-level panel. The two panels are sized and weighted differently and are not combined. July 28, 2026 was a Tuesday, and every baseline is either a same-weekday comparison or a year-over-year comparison against the same calendar date, because QSR ticket size varies substantially by day of week. The competitive set is 30 named US quick-service and fast-casual chains queried by brand; coffee-led chains are excluded as non-substitute lunch and dinner occasions.
