In the last half of 2015, around 500 people in states ranging from California to Massachusetts
had two things in common: They all ate at Chipotle, and they all had
severe diarrhea. Every year there are hundreds of food poisoning
outbreaks in the US, but it’s unusual for one company to see six outbreaks, from three different
germs, in just six months. “In 22 years of doing these kinds of cases, I can’t
think of a chain that has ever had that happen.” Obviously, not ideal for a company whose brand is
serving higher-quality food. “If you’re like other Americans, you love
to eat Chipotle, but you hate all those terrible blood stains in your underwear.”
To understand how Chipotle plans to fix it, you have to look at the different ways the
food was contaminated. For the two large outbreaks in Boston and
Simi Valley, California, the pathogen was norovirus.
“I just vomited for many hours straight.” Norovirus doesn’t come from the food supply
itself, but rather from a restaurant employee who was sick but came to work anyway.
The two locations spreading norovirus were closed and sanitized, and Chipotle says it
will strengthen employee training. An outbreak at 22 Chipotle locations in Minnesota
involved Salmonella bacteria, which did come from the food itself.
“State health officials now are blaming tomatoes”
Chipotle then switched to a different tomato supplier.
But the E. coli outbreak has been tougher to nail down, in part because cases popped
up in nine different states. And then: “There is more trouble for Chipotle.”
The CDC later announced more E. coli cases from Kansas and Oklahoma, which
may or may not be related to the previous outbreak.
The types of E. coli that make humans sick live in the intestines of cattle.
So people can often get infected from undercooked beef.
But fruits and vegetables exposed to contaminated water or manure can also transmit the bacteria.
So here’s what’s a little unnerving for Chipotle customers.
“The CEO said that they have tested every single one of the 64 ingredients that Chipotle
uses, and they still can’t find the problem.” Unfortunately, in multistate cases, the CDC
can identify the specific source of the food poisoning only about half the time.
And it’s particularly challenging with the type of food Chipotle serves.
“Almost everything that is in a burrito is in a taco is in a taco bowl. So it’s
hard to parse out and say, 'Oh it was the cilantro, oh it was the lettuce.'"
In the meantime, Chipotle hired an expert to devise a wide-scale food safety plan. It
includes routine DNA testing of ingredients before they’re shipped to restaurants.
“The testing protocols that he sets up on the supply-chain are pretty rigorous. So assuming
you can get the supply chain to go along with you, I think that’s going to be
a really positive thing, and especially if they want to do fresh items in their stores.”
There can be a tradeoff between safe food
and fresh food, as Chipotle seems to be acknowledging. Instead of shredding cheese and chopping tomatoes,
lettuce, and cilantro inside the restaurants, they’ll now be processed and packaged off-site
in centralized kitchens. Chipotle’s stock has been dropping, but
it’s worth remembering that other chains have weathered much worse.
In 1993, E. coli from undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box sickened 700 people and
killed 4 children. “They brought in a vice president in charge
of food safety who had carte blanche to turn the company around from a food safety perspective.
I think that’s something that Chipotle really needs to think pretty hard about doing.”
After the Jack in the Box outbreak was over, they launched a marketing campaign to signal
the corporate overhaul. “I’m ready to make Jack in the Box better than ever.”
The message wasn’t subtle.