Chipotle tweaks cooking methods after E. coli scare

Those changes include blanching onions in boiling water to kill pathogens and then dicing them along with lemon or lime juice to further eliminate any potential germs, The Associated Press reports. Cilantro will be added to freshly cooked rice so the heat gets rid of microbes in the garnish.

Three E. coli cases in Oklahoma linked to Chipotle originated at the Campus Corner location adjacent to the University of Oklahoma in Norman, according to the restaurant chain.

Chipotle’s most recent outbreak affected five people from three states who ate at restaurants in Kansas and Oklahoma in November, the CDC said.

“When you’re given a project like this, you look at the universe of hazards”, sad Mansour Samadpour, CEO of IEH Laboratories, which was hired by Chipotle to tighten its procedures. More than 50 cases of E. coli have been reported in eight states.

Chipotle’s problems appeared to be worsened by the CDC’s observation that while they have been able to identify the restaurants where people ate, “the way Chipotle does its record-keeping” has prevented the CDC from being able “to figure out what food is in common across all those restaurants”, according to Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the outbreak response and prevention branch of the CDC.

On Wednesday, it was reported that a Boston Chipotle restaurant where 136 people were sickened with norovirus is being allowed to reopen.

Federal food safety officials are investigating a second outbreak of a rare strain of E. coli linked to Chipotle restaurants, even as cases in an outbreak that started in Washington and OR continue to rise.

The company did not respond directly to Reuters’ request for more details on Tuesday, saying that its highest priority was implementing the food safety plan, that many components were in place, and that the rest would be implemented as quickly as possible.

As Chipotle founder Steve Ells recently said, “If I’m eating a burrito that had tomatoes that were chopped in a central kitchen in the salsa or one that was chopped in house, I probably couldn’t tell the difference”. Once prepared, those items will be sealed and shipped to 19 distribution centers before being delivered to the chain’s 1,900 restaurants. After being tied to an E. coli outbreak in late 2006, Taco Bell’s sales fell for multiple quarters. The larger E. coli outbreak not only led Denver-headquartered Chipotle to see decline in its customer numbers, but also became the reason of the company’s falling share price.