Chipotle Plans To Win You Back With Free Food

Chipotle, upended by repeated cases of food poisoning, plans to shut all its outlets for several hours on that date to hold company-wide meetings on food safety.

Chris Arnold, a spokesman for Chipotle, told the Oregonian the meeting is expected to take place on February 8 and will involve all staff members.

Chipotle – a company that prides itself on serving fresh food that does not contain genetically modified organisms – faces a federal criminal investigation and a lawsuit from shareholders after the recent salmonella, norovirus, and E.coli outbreaks.

More than 500 people are estimated to have become ill after eating in Chipotle restaurants in the second half of 2015. Ells remains confident that customers will come back to Chipotle when they regain confidence in the restaurant chain. A norovirus episode in Boston last month sickened more than 120 college students. Nothing says “safe food” like a national chain closure.

The outbreaks caused significant financial damage to the company as well, with a 30 percent drop in same-store sales in December, according to a company memo.

He said that Chipotle is planning to lure back customers with a new marketing campaign in February. The meeting is to mark a new start for the company’s new food safety program created to prevent the problems that plagued the company previous year. It announced it hired a food safety expert, instituted “high resolution testing” of produce before it is shipped to stores and more testing of food at restaurants, and updated and improved its food handling training.

Chipotle executives said at an investor conference on Wednesday that they think the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will “call an end to the outbreak linked to the restaurant chain”, the Wall Street Journal stated.

The announcement follows what has been a hard time for Chipotle.