Criminal investigation underway at Chipotle after norovirus outbreak

The Mexican-food chain announced Wednesday that it has been served with a federal grand-jury subpoena stemming from a probe into a norovirous outbreak at a Chipotle in Simi Valley, California, last August, which reportedly sickened at least 234 people.

Shares of the burrito chain fell more than 5 percent to $424.95, their lowest in more than two years, as the Denver-based company grapples with a wave of norovirus and E. coli outbreaks that have sickened customers and battered sales.

He also noted that Chipotle’s “Food With Integrity” slogan makes the E. coli cases all the more damaging. “I’m not sure, quite frankly, they’ll ever have the halo they did prior to the outbreak”, said Bob Derrington, senior restaurant analyst at Telsey Advisory Group.

The Chipotle-linked outbreaks, which have been covered heavily in the national press, have led to a 30 percent drop in sales in December, according to the AP.

The criminal investigation is going to be focused specifically on a Norovirus outbreak in Simi Valley, California, and Chipotle has said that it will comply with the investigation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment, citing a policy not to comment on ongoing criminal investigations.

Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer representing Chipotle customers who were sickened in the August outbreak, told reporters a criminal investigation following a norovirus outbreak is unusual.

That outbreak was followed by the norovirus incident in Brighton, in which 91 people including members from Boston’s basketball team fell sick. “The investigation has not identified what specific food is linked to illness”.

In a statement issued to ABC News from Chipotle’s spokesman Chris Arnold, the company plans to “cooperate fully with this investigation”. The quarterly decline was the first for Chipotle as a public company.

“It was probably due to a sick employee or employees”, Beach said.

The restaurant was briefly closed by the company and then reopened after it had been “washed down”, Beach said.

To rehabilitate its image, Chipotle has taken out full-page ads apologizing to customers in dozens of newspapers around the country.

“The estimate of non-recurring expenses 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”, according to the SEC filing. The Co-CEO Steve Ells suggested that they may never discover which ingredient caused the E. coli.