Chipotle now expects to spend $14-16 million in the fourth quarter on lab tests, food replacement and food safety upgrades, up from the prior range of $6-8 million. The company said it was served with a Federal Grand Jury Subpoena from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last month.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, on December 21 said the outbreak had infected 53 people from nine states.
Since the outbreaks began, the company has had to do a major sanitizing project on all its affected restaurants and send food for testing at government labs, trying to assist public health officials to determine the exact causes of the outbreaks.
It said the investigation does not involve a more recent E. coli outbreak tied to its restaurants or a separate norovirus outbreak in Boston.
Last month, Chipotle also said it could no longer reasonably predict sales trends given the food scares and retracted its forecast for 2016.
The Chipotle restaurant chain is under investigation for a norovirus outbreak at one store, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc, under scrutiny for months over outbreaks of foodborne illness across several USA states, said on Wednesday it was served with a subpoena in a federal criminal probe linked to a norovirus case in California past year. Things got worse in December, when more than 100 students from Boston College fell ill with norovirus after eating at the Chipotle location near campus.
Chipotle has marketed itself as a healthier option to fast food, touting itself as the first major national chain to eliminate genetically-modified ingredients from most of its menu.
Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said in an email that the company does not discuss pending legal actions as a matter of policy, but that it would cooperate fully in the investigation. The company has pledged to tighten food safety procedures to prevent further such incidents.
The company had already been in the spotlight after various restaurants around the country, including one in Shawnee, reported outbreaks of E. coli bacteria.
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In Simi Valley, at least 98 customers and 17 employees of Chipotle were sickened by norovirus on August 18 and 19. “These authorized repurchases are in addition to $300 million in repurchase authorizations announced on December 4, 2015, of which $116 million remained available as of December 31, 2015”, Chipotle said in the SEC documents. Chipotle (CMG) shares were down almost 1% at $444.74 in morning trading.
