POLL: Are You Still Willing to Eat at Chipotle?
For any fast-food chain, food borne illnesses can be debilitating to both their customers and their business. Chipotle, which has long tried to differentiate itself by using fresher ingredients than its competition, is in the midst of a fiasco proportionate to its notoriously gigantic burritos.
Since last year, nearly 500 people across the country have become ill as a result of eating at the Mexican chain. Has this changed your mind about eating at Chipotle?
From E. Coli to Norovirus
It began in July, when five customers in Seattle were infected with E. Coli. Then, a month later, 234 people fell ill when exposed to norovirus by eating at a Simi Valley, California location where a kitchen manager had worked while feeling ill. Most recently, in December, 141 college students in Boston contracted the norovirus from eating at a Beantown Chipotle.
Can Free Food Counter Lawsuits and Bad Press?
Naturally, these occurrences have caused business to suffer, and they have also resulted in nine lawsuits filed by customers as well as a group of stockholders who assert that the company failed to disclose that its "quality controls were inadequate to safeguard consumer and employee health."
To combat failing business, Chipotle is allowing the managers of its locations to give away free food to lure customers. It's also running a Super Bowl promotion where the first 1,500 catering orders of 20 burritos or more will receive a $50 discount. The biggest news, though, is that the day after the Super Bowl, February 8, Chipotle will shut down all its locations for a national employee meeting to address food safety.
Nevertheless, some people still love Chipotle and don't need any convincing to eat there. Several NBA stars have professed their love for the chain on Twitter, including Boston Celtics General Manager (and former guard) Danny Ainge, who referred to himself as the "Jared of Chipotle." (We assume that means he eats there almost every day, but we'd still recommend a different comparison.)
Will You Eat at Chipotle?
But how about you? We want to know if all the latest PR nightmares have affected your Chipotle consumption, or will you just figure out how to make the Mexican food at home?
Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 > DARK Act: Deny Americans the Right to Know.
House 275 - 150 eliminate GMO labeling as a FEDERAL STANDARD, anti-constitutional.
Vote: http://politics.nytimes.com/...tes/114/house/1/462
Senators congratulate one another on toxic food system. Sen Stabnow fraudulent frames GMO a perception problem by the American public. Perpetration on American Citizenry from early 1990's. Reagan/Bush's 12 years of 'DEREGULATION' the FOX guarding the hen house, 'standard of regulation'.
Sen Hearing:
http://www.agriculture.senate.gov/...-perspectives
Chipolte is highly overrated and seems to appeal to the hipster and Starbucks crowd.
McDonald's sold them years ago.
What I find so amazing about the whole thing is that the restaurant was absolutely full of customers even with the water falling on them or the questionable food quality. Either Chipotle has something going here or the general public in this country is extremely passive and will "settle" for just about anything ... or both. A not-so-good experience that I would not want to repeat.
They have been against man made/created/industrialized food for some time.
I trust Chipotle food far more then their parent co. McDonalds.
I stopped eating McDonalds after I got too many weird texture hamburgers.
Yes, McDonalds is 100% beef but that spongy texture burger can only be from (still US legal) "pink slime" ingredients in my view.
In the US business market I wouldn't be surprised to find that the modified food industry has had a hand in crafting the outbreaks.
On one hand, I wished they identified the source of the e-coli. But the fact that they could not is actually encouraging in that it forced them to re-evaluate their entire food supply chain for every single ingredient.
So at this point, I'd say Chipotle is probably safer to eat than many other restaurants.
Enough said
I'm finding we're eating out even less with this and the poor economy...
As stated, the Norovirus occurred at two locations because a person came into work sick with the virus. It wasn't anything in the food, it isn't going to suddenly show up at another location (again, unless an employee comes in who is sick with it).
If they had an ongoing eColi issue (much like Blue Bell and listeria), then I think concern would be warranted. But isolated outbreaks of norovirus at two stores (which is a very common virus) and one case of eColi in one region 6 months ago does not equal an epidemic.
I am also going to the doctor every other week and doc said I am more healthy than ever!
Thanks Chip!
If you disagree, and claim that GMO's are dangerous & organic foods are safer, please provide a link to any large, double-blind randomized controlled peer-reviewed studies with mortality outcomes showing otherwise. I'm not interested in what you heard from a friend :)
That said, I admit a bit of schadenfreude given Chipotle markets themselves with constant scaremongering about the dangers of those evil GMOs, nonorganic food, etc. Turns out "natural" and "organic" don't equal safe (nor is the inverse true). And, of course, a 1400 calorie burrito isn't necessarily healthy, even if it is all organic and doesn't give you e. coli.
On the other hand, the chances of being hit by a car are very good (about one in 4,292), yet we all continue to cross the street.
(Plus, if you stop eating at places that have made people sick, then your options for food would be non-existent - including food you've made yourself.)
Why would eat their free food? I'm never going back.