Coli outbreak, Chipotle plans to close all stores for food-safety meeting

You’re going to have to choose somewhere else to eat lunch on February 8.

In his letter, Ells revealed the creation of a comprehensive food safety program that “dramatically reduces risk” on their farms, throughout the supply chain and in the restaurants.

The company projects an 8 percent drop in fourth-quarter sales for 2015. There have also been dozens of cases of Chipotle customers being sickened with E. coli in nine states over the last few months.

Chipotle is known for their delicious and reportedly “fresh” Mexican fare, but lately they’ve been known for making some people sick. Since then, the company says it’s been serving a million customers a day “without incident”. The California outbreak has resulted in a federal criminal investigation. And the CDC announced it was investigating another E. coli outbreak that could be linked to the chain.

“We are hosting a national team meeting to thank our employees for their hard work through this difficult time”, said Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman. Chipotle worked with the health officials and retained third-party food safety consulting firms to help it delve into the causes.

In addition to the focus on safety, the company will also “launch a marketing campaign in February to kick off its road to recovery after the food scares”. This meeting will include all of Chipotle’s staff at its more than 1,900 locations, said Danielle Moore, public relations and communications manager for Chipotle, per NBC News. That sense of freshly prepared ingredients has been one of Chipotle’s attractions as it has sought to distinguish itself from traditional fast-food chains.

“I’m confident we’ll recover from this and win back our customers”, Ells said, according to the Wall Street Journal. After a month and half of outbreak-free news, Chipotle believes that the Centers of Disease Control will soon call an end to the outbreak.