Chipotle Taking Steps to Win Back Customers

[Food Business News] - Since the [E. coli foodborne illness outbreak], Denver-based Chipotle has pledged to become an industry leader in food safety with aggressive actions under way to prevent future outbreaks. The company partnered with an epidemiologist to develop an enhanced food safety program.

“We immediately started dicing our tomatoes in a commissary, so that they could go through a sanitizing kill step and then [be] hermetically sealed in containers and delivered to the restaurants,” said Steve Ells, founder, chairman and co-CEO. “We found it impossible that we could test every tomato coming into the restaurants. So we went with an abundance of caution to make sure that we’re testing that way. A similar protocol for cilantro, where the amount of testing assures that there are no pathogens coming into the restaurant.”

These changes won’t be cheap, said Jack Hartung, chief financial officer.

“It’s going to be a significant investment,” Mr. Hartung said. “We’re not going be very efficient at doing this right now. What’s most important is that we get this done, that food safety is the most important thing that we focus on right now, and we’ve got to act with a sense of urgency, which is what we’re doing, to get it done.”

Read the full story at Food Business News.