“Out of an abundance of caution, we have closed 43 (including all of our Washington locations)”, said Chris Arnold, Chipotle communications director, in a Monday email.
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The number of confirmed and presumed E. coli cases across Oregon and Washington state has jumped to 37 from 22 – with the majority linked to Chipotle restaurants, health officials said Tuesday.
Oregon officials had reported on Saturday that three Chipotle customers were sickened with E. coli, while officials in Washington state say 19 customers, who ate at the chain from October 14 to October 23, have been stricken.
Microbiologist Michigan Kang works to identify a strain of E. coli from a specimen in a lab at the Washington State Dept. of Health Tuesday, November 3, 2015, in Shoreline, Wash.
This outbreak is the third incident of foodbourne illness at Chipotle this year.
Chipotle closed 43 of its Pacific Northwest locations in response.
Dr. Jeff Duchin, a health officer in King County in Washington, said that these investigations are “really hard” to do since there is overlap in the ingredients used in the different menu items and hopes the environmental testing can pinpoint the specific item causing the outbreak. “We’re still looking at everything, but from what we’ve heard from the people who got sick the produce seems the most probable source”.
It turns out the very thing driving Chipotle’s popularity, its focus on fresh food from relatively small, local farms, might also be contributing to these outbreaks. A direct link has not yet been established but health officials in both states have asked people who have become ill after eating at the restaurants to contact their doctor as soon as possible. Lindquist said officials might know by Wednesday what type of food tests positive for the same microorganism. (NYSE:CMG) develops and operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants, which serve a concentrated menu of burritos, tacos, burrito bowls (a burrito without the tortilla) and salads.
The source of the E. coli was most likely a fresh food product, D’Angeli said, because it probably could not be traced to one sick individual or one instance of cross-contamination of food since the cases are connected with so many restaurants.
The number of people affected by an E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle continues to rise.
She expects more cases to be discovered in coming days, as the incubation period for the infection can be up to 10 days.
Chipotle now says eight restaurants, not six, have been tied to the E. coli outbreak in Washington state and Oregon.
“We don’t have much more to tell you about this outbreak”, Frieden said. Nine ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen restaurants are also included by the restaurants of the Company’s.
Investigators now say they are focusing on finding the source of the e-coli.
Analysts believe that the real cause of E. coli problem would have been in supply chain and not due to employee actions.
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Chipotle’s stock fell as much as 5 percent early Monday, but recovered slightly, falling 2.5 percent to close at $624.
