04 Feb 2016 US: Fresh ingredients came back to haunt Chipotle
Steve Ells built Chipotle Mexican Grill into a restaurant-industry leader by playing offense, brashly touting fresher and more virtuous food than competitors. His company boasted of “food with integrity” and ridiculed rivals for using artificial ingredients. Then E Coli (STEC 026) struck….
For much of the past few months, though, he has been playing defense after E coli outbreaks sickened dozens, set regulators on the elusive trail of the cause and sent investors fleeing from the once-hot leader in healthy fast food.
Ells, Chipotle’s co-chief executive, must show he can revamp its kitchens to avoid a repeat and revive its fortunes. Chipotlethis week reported fourth-quarter net income of $67.9-million, or $2.17 a share, down 44% from a year earlier, on a 6.8% drop in sales to $997.5-million. It was the first decline in quarterly revenue since Chipotle went public in 2006.
Ells told investors Tuesday that Chipotle has prided itself on being a safe place to eat but that “the events of the last few months have shown us we need to do better.”
People who know Ells said he has thrown himself into overhauling Chipotle’s food-safety practices, from adding ingredients tests to altering how employees marinate meat.
Some of those efforts involve undoing practices he had trumpeted as contributing to the freshness or quality of ingredients, such as a move last year to start cutting tomatoes and other produce in restaurant kitchens.
“Food safety is the most important thing,” Ells has told employees during the crisis, said a person familiar with his pronouncements who described him as “evangelical” about the subject. Ells declined interview requests.
What caused the E coli may remain a mystery after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday the outbreaks appeared to be over and it had closed its investigation without pinpointing an ingredient source.
“Because we will probably never know for sure what caused this,” Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said, “we have taken significant measures to improve safety for all of the ingredients we use.”
Ells’s team sometimes was at odds with the CDC, which helped investigate the outbreak of E coli tied to Chipotle that sickened 55 people across America, as well as a smaller one that sickened five more.
Behind the scenes, Chipotle also disagreed with health officials about the E coli’s likely source, said people familiar with the discussions. Government officials leaned toward produce. Chipotle concluded the E coli was most likely from contaminated Australian beef.
Chipotle in 2014 began importing grass-fed beef to meet its demand for “responsibly raised” meat. It believed the E. coli spread to other ingredients through improper food handling, said people familiar with Chipotle…..
Wall Street Journal: Read the full article (via Google News to avoid paywall)
Related reading:
CDC and FDA call Chipotle E coli O26 Outbreaks Over – But…
Ultimately, no food item has been identified as causing the outbreak, and by the same token, no food has been ruled out as a cause….