Steven Ells, a CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, issued a much more honest apology to customers that fell ill in Boston, as reported in Today.
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“They’re having a tough time, and I feel awful about that”, Steve Ells said.
Later on, illness reports from the restaurants continued to surface in more states, including Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and just this week over 80 students from Boston College got sick after eating at a Chipotle nearby.
“Since all of this began, we have completed a comprehensive reassessment of all of our food safety and handling practices … and we have begun implementing that program”.
When asked whether Chipotle would be able to recover financially from the outbreak, Ells said, “Well certainly but that’s not what we’re thinking about now we’re thinking about the safety and quality of our ingredients”. The exact source of the E. coli has not been pinpointed, but Ells said that if there’s a “silver lining” to the incidents, it’s that the chain is paying closer attention to its ingredients. Illnesses contracted at Chipotles have since been reported in seven more states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland. “I have to say I’m sorry for the people that got sick”. “This leads you to have stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea and to throw up”, the CDC says on its website.
In recent months, Chipotle has battled a number of outbreaks at its restaurants.
The virus is transmitted when a food handler who has been sick has microscopic amounts of vomit or stool on his or her hands and touches food that is eaten by someone else or contaminates a food preparation area by touching it. All came back negative for E. coli. “But now I know why”, said 31-year-old Dominick Picciano, putting down his double-wrapped chicken burrito after being informed that the restaurant chain had recently suffered a string of contaminant outbreaks across the country. He added the chain has upgraded its safety protocols, which he claimed will put the chain more than a decade ahead of industry norms. Wedbush raised their price target on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $620.00 to $740.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 24th.
“The extent of the damage to the company is going to depend to a large extent on how Chipotle responds, particularly online and through social media, where a lot of these things gain energy and gain buzz and develop a life of their own”, Badillo said.
In its annual report, Chipotle has noted that it may be at a higher risk for outbreaks of food-borne illnesses because of its “fresh produce and meats rather than frozen, and our reliance on employees cooking with traditional methods rather than automation”.
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But wait – did Chipotle forget it doesn’t support the use of antibiotics in livestock?
