Chipotle Faces Federal Criminal Investigation Over Norovirus Outbreak

The Denver fast casual chain said in a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the subpoena from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California received in December was for a “broad range” of documents related to the norovirus incident from August of past year.

The investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the company said.

According to Doug Beach, manager of the community services program at the Ventura County Environmental Health Division, eating at one of Chipotle’s restaurant in Simi Valley, California, about 207 people, including 18 Chipotle employees, had fallen ill in mid-August a year ago. The slide continued following a norovirus outbreak at a Chipotle restaurant in Brighton, Mass., that sickened 130 individuals, mostly students attending nearby Boston College. On Wednesday, Chipotle revealed that its sales fell by 14.6 percent in the last quarter of 2015. “Future sales trends may be significantly influenced by further developments”.

The federal government has launched a criminal investigation into an outbreak of foodborne illness linked to one Chipotle Mexican Grill, Reuters reports. The quarterly decline was the first for Chipotle as a public company. He said that workers had closed and cleaned the restaurant, but did not notify his agency until after it reopened.

The popular Mexican restaurant chain has suffered a huge hit after its recent E.coli and norovirus scandal – and it’s worse than they had predicted..

Following the announcements of the outbreaks and related national media attention, comparable restaurant sales were down 30% for December. But risky E. coli can lead to “diarrhea, while others cause urinary tract infections, respiratory illness and pneumonia, and other illnesses”, the CDC says.

Chipotle’s comparable restaurant sales have been hard-hit by food safety woes.

To rehabilitate its image, Chipotle has taken out full-page ads apologizing to customers in dozens of newspapers around the country. The company plans to improve cooking methods and increase the testing of meat and produce.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said Chipotle intends to fully cooperate with the investigation, but declined to go into detail citing the company’s policy about pending litigation.