Here’s the problem with eating plants: they come from outside, where animals also live. Sometimes, animals want to try our food, too, and the safeguards meant to keep animals that we didn’t mean to eat off our plates fail. That’s when we end up with dead baby weasels in our salads. [More]
food safety
Blue Bell Pinky Swears, Promises Its Ice Cream Is Totally Safe To Eat Now
By 1.12.16
Blue Bell Creameries is working hard to reassure customers after last year’s outbreak of Listeria contamination and a slew of massive recalls, issuing yet another message promising that its products are now safe to eat. [More]
Chipotle Sued For Not Disclosing Food Quality Control Problems To Stockholders
By 1.8.16
Customers don’t trust fast-casual Mexican-ish restaurant Chipotle very much right now, after a series of foodborne illness outbreaks in different parts of the country. The outbreaks of e. Coli, Salmonella, and norovirus were unrelated to each other, but demonstrated problems with the chain’s food-handling procedures. Now an investor has filed a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders who bought stock in the company in the last year, claiming that the company should have known about the problems with its food handling processes, and disclosed them. [More]
Chipotle’s Sales Took A Deeper Dive Than Previously Expected Amid Food Safety Issues
By 1.6.16
It’s safe to say that Chipotle’s year is off to a rough start. Today, the company announced that it had received a subpoena from a grand jury looking into the circumstances surrounding a norovirus outbreak in California, and then it disclosed another bit of not-so-great news to investors: sales this quarter are down even more than analysts predicted in November. [More]
Health Officials Investigating Chipotle For Different E.Coli Strain, Five Illnesses
By 12.21.15
While Chipotle CEO Steven Ells was busy riding the apology train, issuing regrets for a recent E.coli outbreak that sickened more than 50 people in nine states and a norovirus outbreak in Boston involving 140 students, the fast casual chain was being linked to five separate illnesses in three more states. [More]
Chipotle Facing First Lawsuit Linked To Boston Norovirus Outbreak That Sickened 140 People
By 12.18.15
It was bound to happen: the first lawsuit has been fired — er, filed against Chipotle in connection with the recent norovirus outbreak that sickened 140 people who ate at one of the chain’s Boston locations. [More]
Chipotle Takes Out A Full-Page Ad To Continue The Apology Parade
By 12.16.15
Chipotle co-CEO and founder Steve Ells has been riding a great big apology train around the news circuit lately, issuing a mea culpa on TV last week and mentioning again this week how “deeply sorry” he is that the chain has been linked to a nine-state E. coli outbreak that’s sickened more than 50 people and a major norovirus incident in Boston involving 140 students. He’s not done yet, either: the company took out a full-page ad in 61 newspapers around the country on Wednesday to continue apologizing to customers. [More]
Chipotle CEO Promises New Safety Standards Won’t Mean Higher Prices
By 12.16.15
After Chipotle CEO Steve Ells pledged that new safety standards would be going into effect at the chain’s restaurants across the U.S., promising it would soon be “the safest place to eat,” some customers might have wondered whether the cost of that initiative would hit them right where it hurts most, the wallet. But Ells says customers don’t need to worry about the price of their (hopefully) E. coli-free burritos and tacos going up. [More]
Chipotle Has Been Making Customers Sick Since The Summer, Company Says “There Really Wasn’t A Pattern”
By 12.11.15
Although Chipotle CEO and co-founder Steve Ells apologized yesterday to customers who have gotten sick from eating at the chain recently — whether from E. Coli or norovirus — it’s worth remembering that there are some folks who’ve had to wait a bit longer for that mea culpa. [More]
Chipotle CEO Apologizes For Making People Sick: “We Are Going To Be The Safest Place To Eat”
By 12.10.15
After Chipotle customers all over the country have fallen ill from eating at the chain’s restaurants, founder and co-CEO Steve Ells says he’s sorry the restaurant has caused so many to become sick, and promised to implement new food safety guidelines to help prevent such outbreaks from happening in the future. [More]
Chicken Wing Crime Exposes Pervasive, Disgusting Black Market For Meat
By 12.9.15
Yesterday, we learned about a father-and-son team of crooked cooks who teamed up to illicitly order and re-sell $41,000 worth of chicken wings from their employer’s wholesale supply accounts. Yet who buys wings from the Back of Some Dude’s Truck Meat Market? It turns out that there’s a market for ill-gotten meats, and other restaurant owners receive occasional offers of chicken or shrimp from the back of a truck. [More]
Walmart Shoppers Surprised To See Flock Of Snacking Birds Camped Out In Store’s Meat Section
By 12.1.15
Of all the places one would expect to see a flock of birds settled down for a group snack, the meat display at your local grocery store is probably pretty far down on the list. To that end, Walmart shoppers in Massachusetts were understandably surprised over the weekend, when at least two customers snapped video footage of a group of live fowl pecking away at packages of red meat. [More]
The FDA Will Now Have Oversight Of Fresh Produce Safety Before Anyone Gets Sick
By 11.13.15
No one expects to add more fresh fruit and vegetables to their diet and end up with a stomach bug, a serious illness, or dead. Yet that’s beginning to happen, with multi-state outbreaks of food-borne illness, especially in items like fruit and salad greens that are generally eaten without cooking, and apparently not washed sufficiently. The Food and Drug Administration wants to change that. [More]
Closed Northwestern Chipotle Restaurants Will Start Opening On Wednesday
By 11.10.15
If you live near in Seattle or Portland and have been pining for a Chipotle burrito since all local restaurants shut down on Halloween due to an E. coli outbreak of undetermined origin, your week and a half of patience has been rewarded. The restaurants are reopening this week. [More]
Local Authorities Warn Public Not To Eat Cheese From Overturned Truck On The Highway
By 9.28.15
Listen. I know how tempting free cheese is — grocery stores put away their samples when I come sniffing around — but no matter how badly you want to save cheese from the horrible fate of going uneaten, don’t do it. Officials in Alabama had to warn local residents not to scoop up cheese strewn across the road after a truck overturned on the highway. [More]
Sanderson Farms Recalls 554,090 Pounds Of Chicken That May Be Contaminated With Metal Fragments
By 9.25.15
Sanderson Farms is recalling more than 554,090 pounds of chicken products because they may have been contaminated with metal shavings, due to a malfunction with an ice-making machine somewhere along the line. [More]
Salmonella Outbreak In Minnesota Linked To At Least 17 Chipotle Restaurants
By 9.11.15
A salmonella outbreak in Minnesota that’s sickened 45 people and sent five to the hospital has been linked to at least 17 Chipotle restaurants, say investigators with the state’s Department of Health. Officials believe that the contaminated ingredient has already been removed from all Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota. [More]
Kraft Adds 335K More Cases Of Cheese Singles To Recall Over Packaging Choking Hazard
By 9.4.15
After recalling 36,000 cases of Kraft Singles out of concern that consumers could choke on parts of the film covering individual slices, Kraft Heinz has expanded the recall to include 335,000 more cases of cheese for the same packaging reason. [More]
