Chipotle is required to hand over several documents pertaining to its restaurant in Simi Valley, California where the norovirus outbreak occurred in August 2015.
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The investigation is more bad news for Chipotle, which has yet to regain its financial footing following outbreaks of norovirus, E. coli O26 and Salmonella Newport that public health officials linked to the chain’s restaurants.
The federal court is conducting the investigation in conjunction with the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations.
A subpoena from a federal grand jury, disclosed Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, requires Chipotle to produce a range of documents related to the outbreak.
The company had already been in the spotlight after various restaurants around the country, including one in Shawnee, reported outbreaks of E. coli bacteria. Chipotle had expected comparable restaurant sales (those at restaurants open for at least 13 months) to fall by as much as 11 percent for the quarter ending December 31. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment for similar reasons.
During August, Norovirus was the culprit for sickening close to 100 people at one of Chipotle’s restaurants in California.
That outbreak was followed by the norovirus incident in Brighton, in which 91 people including members from Boston’s basketball team fell sick. For the last quarter, the company is expecting $1.70 to $1.90 a share in earnings, which is, as the Wall Street Journal points out, “well below the $2.45 to $2.85 a share it had forecast in early December”.
The Denver-based company, which until late a year ago had enjoyed a long string of positive growth and brand affinity for its “Food With Integrity” mantra, announced that its same-store sales decreased 30 percent in the month of December.
The FDA declined to comment specifically on the investigation.
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“If you eat something at a restaurant and it’s not edible, you get sick, yes, you can sue”, Langton said. Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold declined to discuss most aspects of the probe, but the company said the subpoena covers only the “isolated” Simi Valley case. This estimate includes costs to replace food in select restaurants, lab analysis of food samples and environmental swabs, increased marketing expenses, retaining expert advisory services related to epidemiology and food safety, and preliminary estimates for legal claims and related expenses. Chipotle said the five new cases “were the same strain of E.coli 025 but with a different DNA fingerprint”.
