Karlene Lukovitz of MediaPost reports that after battling since last summer to recover from a series of food contamination incidents, Chipotle Mexican Grill has released a new long-form video that returns to its pre-crisis brand messaging about the superiority of its fresh, natural ingredients over typical fast-food fare.
According to Chipotle, the new video, “A Love Story,” began to be developed 18 months ago, before the restaurant chain’s first two contamination incidents in August 2015.
Those salmonella and norovirus incidents were followed in Fall 2015 by an E. coli outbreak, and then by separate norovirus incidents in December 2015 and March 2016.
The latest video’s story is about two children who set up competitive all-natural juice stands. As they grow up and establish real businesses, they resort to competing by offering increasingly processed fast food with artificial ingredients. Ultimately, they unite, fall in love, have a family and launch a food truck offering Chipotle-like items in synch with their original standards of natural ingredients and preparation.
With all the natural things like E. coli, Salmonella and Norovirus.
Doesn’t sound like the food safety and marketing hucksters are talking.
In recent months, Chipotle has tried to revive its traffic and sales with free-food offers. But its Q1 2016 same-store sales were down 30%, and it reported its first loss as a public company. Its stock price has dropped by 35% over the past 12 months.
The new video ends by promoting its latest revival effort: a “summer rewards” program called Chiptopia.
According to the recall notice, the toxin-producing E. coli was found in a milk sample from a batch of goat milk that was not sold to the public. However, it is possible that subsequent batches could contain the harmful bacteria, hence the voluntary recall.
Burton Hill Farm owner Collin Medeiros said on Friday that he has tracked down and informed via phone or email all Vashon customers potentially affected by the recall.
“It’s pretty devastating and really shocking,” Medeiros said. “We will not be selling raw milk until the source and cause of the contamination can be found and completely removed. We are working with Washington State Department of Agriculture and private consultants to do this.”
He said that the problem is likely the farm’s bulk tank where the milk is held, and can be “remedied quickly.”
As of Friday, Medeiros was not aware of any illnesses in connection with the farm’s recalled milk.
Medeiros said the recall has been “a wake-up call” that has him rethinking the farm’s selling of raw milk, which inherently comes with risks and a warning label about the potential for bacterial growth.
“Raw milk is an unstable product. It’s very nutritious for humans, but that also makes it a perfect breeding ground for other living things,” he said. “There is calculated risk for both the consumer and producer, so the question is, do we want to take this risk?”
This just gets continuinglyly hopeless. More sick people – that’s good to disclose, know it’s uncomfortable for Brits and most Europeans – but telling consumers to wash their hands is stupid.
Why wouldn’t Public Health England (PHE) or the farm groups involved say, this is what we do to reduce risk, and talk about on-farm food safety efforts?
Instead, they tell consumers to wash their hands.
To date, 109 cases (figure correct as at 4 July 2016) of this strain of E. coli have been identified (102 in England, 6 in Wales and 1 in Scotland) with the South West of England particularly affected.
PHE has been working to establish the cause of the outbreak and has now identified that several of the affected individuals ate mixed salad leaves including rocket leaves prior to becoming unwell. Currently, the source of the outbreak is not confirmed and remains under investigation. PHE is now reminding people to maintain good hygiene and food preparation practices in response to the current outbreak.
Dr Isabel Oliver, director of PHE’s field epidemiology service, said, We continue to stress the importance of good hand and food hygiene practices at all times. We urge people to remove any loose soil before storing vegetables and thoroughly wash all vegetables (including salads) that will be eaten raw unless they have been pre-prepared and are specifically labelled ‘ready to eat’. These measures may reduce the risk of infection from any E.coli contaminated vegetables, fruit and salad but will not eliminate any risk of infection completely.
The order follows a HSE investigation into an outbreak of E. coli in the city, which has identified eight cases in adults to date. The HSE said all affected are currently well.
“A Cork food business has been identified as a common link between the cases,” the HSE confirmed yesterday.
Son of a Bun owners Niall and Amanda O’Regan said it was an issue in relation to “structural issues” with the premises.
However in a statement the couple also revealed that “four staff have tested positive to carrying bacteria linked with E .coli”.
The closure order was served last Wednesday, June 29 and the restaurant was shut over the weekend.
While a notice on the door of the premises cited “necessary construction works” as the cause of the closure, it did not make any reference to the closure order.
However the restaurant yesterday issued a statement confirming it had received the closure order.
“Following a complaint, Son of A Bun restaurant has been working with the FSAI to ensure the integrity and quality of food safety at the premises in Cork,” the statement read.
When it opened last October, the owners said Son of a Bun was “the only restaurant approved by the HSE to serve burgers cooked pink”.
However a spokesperson for the HSE yesterday said that it does not award approval to restaurants wishing to serve rare or medium-rare burgers.
And did the bureautypes say that back in Oct.? Did they say anything during subsequent inspections?
As if the English weren’t taunted enough, an outbreak of E. coli O157 phage type (PT) 34 linked with leafy salad has prompted regulators to remind consumers “about the importance of good hygiene and food preparation practice” and wash their f*cking hands (that pic, right, is what accompanied the PR; I can’t make this shit up).
This has nothing to do with E. coli O157 on leafy greens, and is a further continuation of Scotland’s it’s-a-f*cking pink chicken educational campaign.
Public Health England says it is investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157 which may be associated with eating leafy salad. To date 84 cases (figure correct as at 1 July 2016) of this strain of E. coli have been identified (77 in England, 5 in Wales, 1 in the Channel Islands and 1 in Scotland) with the majority of cases confirmed in the South West of England.
Dr. Isabel Oliver, director of PHE’s field epidemiology service, said: PHE has put in place heightened surveillance for this strain of E. coli and is and carefully monitoring the reporting of cases across the entire country. To assist with this investigation, we have convened a national outbreak control team to identify the source of infection and to ensure all necessary control measures are put in place.
And collaborate with the U.K. Food Standards Agency, whose idea of science-based verification is to cook meat until it is piping hot, and declared in 2011 that E. coli O157:H7 found on or in leeks or potatoes, was the consumers’ responsibility.
No information on how those 250 became sick and no information on farming and packing practices that may have led to such a massive contamination that so many people got sick, no information on anything: just advice to wash things thoroughly so that contamination can be spread throughout the kitchen.
This outbreak once again combines two of the central themes of conflict and public trust in all things food, which the English are seemingly terrible at: when to go public, and blaming consumers.
In this study, we investigated the presence of zoonotic enteropathogens in stool samples from 64 asymptomatic children and 203 domestic animals of 62 households in a semirural community in Ecuador between June and August 2014.
Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to assess zoonotic transmission of Campylobacter jejuni and atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (aEPEC), which were the most prevalent bacterial pathogens in children and domestic animals (30.7% and 10.5%, respectively). Four sequence types (STs) of C. jejuni and four STs of aEPEC were identical between children and domestic animals. The apparent sources of human infection were chickens, dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits for C. jejuni and pigs, dogs, and chickens for aEPEC.
Other pathogens detected in children and domestic animals were Giardia lamblia (13.1%), Cryptosporidium parvum (1.1%), and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) (2.6%). Salmonella enterica was detected in 5 dogs and Yersinia enterocolitica was identified in 1 pig. Even though we identified 7 enteric pathogens in children, we encountered evidence of active transmission between domestic animals and humans only for C. jejuni and aEPEC. We also found evidence that C. jejuni strains from chickens were more likely to be transmitted to humans than those coming from other domestic animals. Our findings demonstrate the complex nature of enteropathogen transmission between domestic animals and humans and stress the need for further studies.
Importance
We found evidence that Campylobacter jejuni, Giardia, and aEPEC organisms were the most common zoonotic enteropathogens in children and domestic animals in a region close to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Genetic analysis of the isolates suggests transmission of some genotypes of C. jejuni and aEPEC from domestic animals to humans in this region. We also found that the genotypes associated with C. jejuni from chickens were present more often in children than were those from other domestic animals. The potential environmental factors associated with transmission of these pathogens to humans then are discussed.
Detection of zoonotic enteropathogens in children and domestic animals in a semirural community in Ecuador
Karla Vasco a, Jay P. Graham b and Gabriel Trueba a
A Microbiology Institute, Colegio de Ciencias Biologicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
B Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Volume 82, Number 14, Pages 4218–4224, doi:10.1128/AEM.00795-16
Says he still has bad thoughts when he hears a helicopter overhead.
Jim was a dairy farmer located on the edge of a town in Ontario, Canada, called Walkerton, and he said a lot of people were getting sick. The community knew there was a problem several days before health types went public.
On Sunday, May 21, 2000, at 1:30 p.m., the Bruce Grey Owen Sound Health Unit in Ontario, Canada, posted a notice to hospitals and physicians on their web site to make them aware of a boil water advisory and that a suspected agent in the increase of diarrheal cases was E. coli O157:H7.
There had been a marked increase in illness in the town of about 5,000 people, and many were already saying the water was suspect. But the first public announcement was also the Sunday of the Victoria Day long weekend and received scant media coverage.
It wasn’t until Monday evening that local television and radio began reporting illnesses, stating that at least 300 people in Walkerton were ill.
At 11:00 a.m., on Tuesday May 23, the Walkerton hospital jointly held a media conference with the health unit to inform the public of outbreak, make the public aware of the potential complications of the E. coli O157:H7 infection, and to tell the public to take the necessary precautions. This generated a print report in the local paper the next day, which was picked up by the national wire service Tuesday evening, and subsequently appeared in papers across Canada on May 24.
The public outreach efforts were neither speedy nor sufficient. Ultimately, 2,300 people were sickened and seven died – in a town of 5,000. All the gory details and mistakes and steps for improvement were outlined in the report of the Walkerton inquiry.
“Whenever we heard a helicopter, it probably meant someone else had died.”
That outbreak took a huge toll, in numbers, and in personal memories.
The E. coli O157:H7 was thought to originate on a farm owned by a veterinarian and his family at the edge of town, someone my friend Jim knew well, a cow-calf operation that was the poster farm for Environmental Farm Plans. Heavy rains washed cattle manure into a long discarded well-head which was apparently still connected to the municipal system. The brothers in charge of the municipal water system for Walkerton were found to add chlorine based on smell rather than something minimally scientific like test strips, and were criminally convicted.
But the government-mandated reports don’t capture the day-to-day drama and stress that people like my friend experienced. Jim and his family knew many of the sick and dead. This was a small community. News organizations from around the province descended on Walkerton for weeks. They had their own helicopters, but the worst was the medical helicopters flying patients with hemolytic uremic syndrome to the hospital in London. Every time Jim saw one of those, he wondered if it was someone he knew.
That’s lost on L.V. Anderson, a Slate associate editor, who don’t know shit about science or food safety, gives it away when she writes, “educate yourself.”
That’s same motto of anyone on a crusade from anti-vaxxers, raw milk proponents, genetically-engineered food deniers and far too many scientists — and that’s just the tip of the food categories.
I’ve always preferred, if you want to make a choice, have access to evidence-based information (but keep kids out of it, parents are there to protect not politicize their children).
Academics and government regulators like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are not in the business of making value choices (although there have been missteps and critics will always argue).
They provide information (hopefully).
Of course, they do make value choices, and the best way forward in an everything-is-on-the-Internet-to-support-my-pre-existing opinion is to blatantly state one’s value choices up front.
With food safety, mine are: fewer people barfing.
Scientists and regulators have a responsibility – a duty of care – to share what knowledge they have. I do that as a scientist, as a parent when I question various food safety activities at shool, as a hockey coach, and as a sports medic.
Anderson displays an astonishing naivety to those who have suffered from foodborne illness, especially for someone who lazily decries the nanny state, and offers no solutions.
Heat-treated flour has been available from Nestle since their E. coli outbreak involving Tollhouse cookies in 2009.
There are solutions.
Anderson writes that “a closer look at the reasons behind the FDA’s recommendations reveals that they might, just maybe, be exaggerating the risks of cookie dough. … Forty-two people in 21 states have contracted the flour-linked E. coli since December. No one has died. And yet the FDA’s response is to tell everyone—all 319 million Americans—not to eat any uncooked flour whatsoever. By comparison, the Chipotle E. coli outbreaks affected 60 people in 14 states, and the FDA didn’t respond by telling people not to eat at Chipotle.
I did.
Years ago.
Anderson goes on to write, in a long, terrible tradition of risk-comparisons are-risky that “The current outbreak is, in the grand scheme of things, very small. It’s true that the potentially effects of an E. coli infection are horrifying…. But your risk of ever contracting E. coli—whether from a spoonful of cake batter or a Chipotle burrito or a spinach salad or some other foodborne source—remains minuscule.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that as of June 28, 2016, 42 people infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O121 have been reported from 21 states.
On July 1, 2016, General Mills expanded its recall to include additional lots of Gold Medal Flour, Signature Kitchens Flour, and Gold Medal Wondra Flour.
STEC O121 was isolated from samples of General Mills flour collected from the homes of ill people in Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
Four more ill people have been reported from four states. The most recent illness started on June 8, 2016. One new state, Indiana, has been added to the list of states with ill people.
Illnesses started on dates ranging from December 21, 2015 to June 8, 2016. Ill people range in age from 1 year to 95, with a median age of 18. Eighty-one percent of ill people are female. Eleven ill people have been hospitalized. No one has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, and no deaths have been reported.
Guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC continues to warn that consumers should refrain from consuming any raw products made with flour. E. coli O121 is eliminated by heat through baking, frying, sautéing or boiling products made with flour. All surfaces, hands and utensils should be properly cleaned after contact with flour or dough.
The Chicago Tribune reports a Bridgeport restaurant has been closed after an outbreak of E. coli affected at least 25 Chicago residents and sent at least five people to the hospital, public health officials said Friday.
Carbon Live Fire Mexican Grill at 300 W. 26th St. has been linked to the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli outbreak and the restaurant closed voluntarily, according to a news release from the Chicago Department of Public Health. The restaurant is fully cooperating with the investigation.
Stephanie Strom of the N.Y Times reports Chipotle Mexican Grillwas dealt another blow on Thursday after the executive leading many of Chipotle’s efforts to recover from five food safety fuck-ups in six months was charged with drug possession and accused him of having a connection to a cocaine delivery service in New York.
The company said it had placed Mark Crumpacker (right, not exactly as shown), its chief creative and development officer, onadministrative leave. “We made this decision in order to remain focused on the operation of our business and to allow Mark to focus on these personal matters,” Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, said in an email.
Mr. Arnold said other executives had already been assigned to take on Mr. Crumpacker’s work during his absence.
The company’s same-store sales, or sales in stores open at least a year, have fallen dramatically after food safety crises involving contamination by E. coli and norovirus. More than 500 people became sick after eating at a Chipotle in the second half of last year.
The company has adopted a number of more stringent food safety protocols and spent millions of dollars on marketing to win back customers, efforts led by Mr. Crumpacker. Just this week the company announced Chiptopia, a new loyalty program that rewards frequent customers with free food. Buy four burritos, for instance, and get a fifth one free.
On Thursday, Mr. Crumpacker was named in an indictment from Manhattan prosecutors as one of 18 repeat buyers of cocaine from a business that delivered drugs to customers.
Mr. Crumpacker could not immediately be reached for comment.
The district attorney said the drug ring delivered more than $75,000 worth of cocaine over a year. Three men were charged with running the operation, which prosecutors said was based on the Lower East Side.
The indictment described meetings between the traffickers and buyers in Duane Reade drugstores, Chinese food restaurants and hotels.
fast-food fare.
