Chipotle to Close All Restaurants for a Day for Food Safety Training

In the wake of several outbreaks of disease inflicted on its customers, the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant chain has announced it will close all of its locations for a day to provide employee training on food safety.

Each of the more than 1,900 restaurants nationwide will be closed for several hours on Feb. 8.

The Denver-based Chipotle chain has one restaurant in Rockland County, in the Palisades Center, and three in Westchester County: Yonkers, White Plains and Rye Brook.

In July 2015, five persons were infected with E. coli from a Chipotle restaurant in Seattle, Washington. A month later, nearly 100 persons became ill from a norovirus outbreak in Simi Valley, California, and as many as 64 people contracted salmonella traced to 22 Chipotle locations in Minnesota.

More than three dozen cases of E. coli were reported in October from Chipotle restaurants in Oregon and Washington state, and in the most recent outbreak, 80 Boston College students became ill after eating at a single Chipotle location in December.

Founder Steve Ells posted a letter on the company’s website, stating, “The fact that anyone has become ill eating at Chipotle is completely unacceptable to me and I am deeply sorry. As a result, we are committed to becoming known as the leader in food safety, just as we are known for using the very best ingredients in a fast food setting...Throughout our supply chain, we are implementing high-resolution sampling and testing of many of our ingredients to prevent contaminants, including E. coli, from getting into our restaurants. Testing of this kind is unprecedented in the restaurant industry because of the large number of samples tested. We are also working with our supplier partners to further enhance their food safety programs. We have also designed many improvements within our restaurants to ensure our food is as safe as possible. This includes the introduction of additional microbiological kill steps to eliminate microbial risk. Additionally, we are rolling out new sanitation procedures in our restaurants and implementing additional food safety training for all of our restaurant employees.”

Photo credit: Mike Mozart via flickr creative commons