Seattle public health officials close Chipotle store

As of yesterday, Boston Public Health Commission reported that 91 people had been sickened by norovirus linked to a Chipotle restaurant in Boston, in the latest wave of patrons who have fallen ill from another outbreak in the United States.

“This was a very unfortunate incident and I’m deeply sorry that this happened, but the procedures we’re putting in place today are so above industry norms that [ Chipotle is ] going to be the safest place to eat”.

Boston College said Thursday the number of students reportedly showing norovirus symptoms after eating at the Cleveland Circle Chipotle restaurant has risen to 141. And while Chipotle has said that it is introducing more stringent testing and reassessing its food-handling practices, its reliance on local suppliers means that the task of insuring the integrity of its supply chain will be harder than what Jack in the Box faced.

“We know from food safety research and from food production in this country that there are a lot of vulnerable areas where food contamination could occur”, she said.

Chipotle has spent between $6 million and $8 million responding to the E. coli case to replace food, conduct lab analysis and hire experts to upgrade its food-safety practices.

Asked whether the company could recover financially, Ells said “certainly”.

■ The impacted restaurants were closed “out of an abundance of caution”. N, and 42 other Chipotle restaurants in Washington state and OR, were voluntarily closed by the restaurant at the end of October following an E. coli outbreak.

“Unfortunately, Chipotle’s future was stained with an event similar to McDonald’s food-safety scandal in China a year ago. That lawsuit would be clutch to pay off my student loans”, said one Instagram user.

Red violations are the most prevalent in contributing to foodborne illness, according to the health department.

“I want to know what did they really do to improve the food safety in the four walls?” he said.

“Fast-food companies are 100 percent reliant on their food supply to send them something that is pathogen-free, but the supply chain is still extremely reluctant to test every [food] product it provides”, Samadpour said.

Chipotle has done exactly the right thing by owning up to the outbreaks and apologizing, Bragg said. Food inspection officials in Cambridge, Framingham, and Waltham told the Globe on Wednesday they found no major problems at Chipotle restaurants in their jurisdictions.

In Minnesota, in August and September, more than 64 cases of salmonella were reported and linked to 22 Chipotle restaurants, according to published reports and lawsuits filed in the matter.

“The customer reaction to E. coli headlines (which initially emerged on November 1 and then recurred on November 20) was more severe than expected”, wrote Jason West of Credit Suisse in a research note this week.