According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the two most recent outbreaks of E. coli linked to Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants appear to be over, but the root cause of the infections has not been determined.
Testing of fresh produce, meat and other foods from Chipotle restaurants has not provided investigators with much insight, according to the CDC.
“When a restaurant serves foods with several ingredients that are mixed or cooked together and then used in multiple menu items, it can be more difficult for epidemiologic studies to identity the specific ingredient that is contaminated.”
Some sources have suggested beef from Australia as the source of the E. coli, but no such link has been found by the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Distribution data shared by Chipotle does not establish a link between Australian beef, or any single source of beef, and the Chipotle restaurants where case patients reported consuming steak. Moreover, of the 60 case patients only eight reported consuming steak.
Chipotle’s stock was up more than 5 percent in early trading today as investors anticipated what the company’s executives have been saying for more than two weeks — that the two outbreaks that spanned 14 states and sickened 60 people are a thing of the past.
The announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today fits the Chipotle marketing campaign outlined by founder and co-CEO Steve Ells and other executives in mid-January. They told attendees at an investment conference the public would quickly forget about the outbreaks and that profits would be bigger than ever.
The chain’s stock was trading at $754 in August 2015 and hit a low of $404 in January. Multiple financial and investment publications speculated during the last weekend of January that the public and mainstream media had already forgotten about the E. coli outbreaks, which were the fifth and sixth foodborne illness outbreaks for the restaurant chain in the second half of 2015.
Hundreds of Chipotle’s customers were victims of the outbreaks, to view the list of locations, please click here.
Source: foodsafetynews.com