Chipotle's problems continue

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants have been linked to almost 50 cases of E. coli across the American Northwest in one month, the Seattle Times reports.

Throughout October, at least 30 people in Washington and 19 in Oregon became ill after eating at Chipotle restaurants. Chipotle promptly responded by shutting down 43 of its restaurants but – considering that Fox Business reports Chipotle stock dropping 20 per cent compared to last year – people obviously remain unhappy.

Chipotle's prompt response doesn't change the fact that this is the fourth outbreak linked to its restaurants this year. According to The Atlantic, in August nearly 100 diners (and some employees) in California got ill from norovirus and, soon after, several dozen people in Minnesota got salmonella, all linked back to Chipotle. There was also a small outbreak in Seattle which affected five people.

These are Chipotle's most recent problems, but certainly not their only ones. Last January, Chipotle dropped one of its pork suppliers after discovering the producer wasn't following the company's standards, causing a pork shortage in Chipotle restaurants across America. According to The Atlantic, there has also been criticism over how Chipotle's "food with integrity" stance wrongly conflates "sustainability" with being "healthy" or "low-calorie."

According to barfblog.com, Laura Ries, president of Atlanta marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries, feels that Chipotle has done all the right things to keep customer's trust. "They went above and beyond what they needed to do," she said. On Nov. 11 Chipotle reopened their restaurants, though the exact cause of the outbreak had not been discovered.  BF