Chipotle Implementing New Standards To Ensure Food Safety

The food chain is implementing DNA-based safety testing of the ingredients shipped to their restaurants.

“While it is never possible to completely eliminate all risk, this program eliminates or mitigates risk to a level near zero, and will establish Chipotle as the industry leader in this area”, said Mansour Samadpour, CEO of IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group, in a statement. The company’s stock is trading just below $500, well off summer highs above $750 per share.

So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says five people have been reported sick in a new Chipotle-linked outbreak, including one in Kansas, one in North Dakota and three in Oklahoma. The illnesses began on dates ranging from November 18 to November 26. The three separate Oklahoma cases all ate at the same Chipotle restaurant. The ingredients responsible for the E. coli cases have not been identified.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday showed that almost a quarter of Americans who have heard of the outbreaks are eating less at the Mexican chain’s more than 1,900 locations. “We are moving very quickly on that and will share more information through marketing and communications outreach as things continue to develop”, told Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold as quoted saying by CNBC.

Diners have taken their concerns to Twitter and other other social media.

By comparison, the social media sentiment score of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a California biotechnology company controlled by indicted executive Martin Shkreli, was near negative 20 on Tuesday, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals worldwide, which has been accused of price gouging, had a score of positive 10 on Tuesday, after falling as low as negative 25 in early November.

Chipotle says the changes will be put into place in the coming weeks.