E. Coli Outbreak Shows Vulnerabilities Of Big Chains Using Local Food

By CONRAD WILSON • 21 HOURS AGO

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A woman talks on the phone as she stands in the kitchen area of a closed Chipotle restaurant, Monday, Nov. 2, 2015, in Seattle. An E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Washington state and Oregon has sickened several dozen people in the third outbreak of foodborne illness at the popular chain this year.

ELAINE THOMPSON

Originally published on November 5, 2015 8:13 pm

Heath officials in Washington and Oregon are in the midst of an investigation into the source of E. coli linked to Chipotle restaurants.

So far, they don’t know which foods sickened some 40 people, a dozen of whom were hospitalized.

While investigators suspect some kind of uncooked produce, officials don’t know if they’ll ever find the source of the bacteria.

The Food and Drug Administration is testing food samples from Chipotle restaurants at its lab near Seattle.

They’re looking at things like tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro or some other kind of uncooked food, said Dr. Kathleen Gensheimer, chief medical officer for foods and veterinary medicine at the FDA.

“We don’t necessarily go after each and every food item that the facility serves," she said. "We are targeted in those efforts by the information our public health partners obtain."

In addition to testing things such as salsa and guacamole, Gensheimer said investigators use records to figure out the source of the foods that Chipotle served. That helps identify where along the supply chain the food became contaminated, she said.

“We’re not always that successful to be quite honest," Gensheimer said. "From cilantro, to tomatoes and peppers and onions, it can be very challenging to really tease out what specific item – if it was the salsa, for instance – may have been contaminated and contributed to illness.”

Outbreaks of food-borne illness that span multiple states have increased in recent years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report this week that found since 2010, there have been an average of 24 multi-state outbreaks of food-borne illness every year.

That’s more than three times the number of cases during the 1990s, according to the CDC.

“We are seeing these outbreaks more frequently, but we think a lot of that is due to the fact that we have better methods to detect these outbreaks," said Matthew Weiss, who runs a team at the CDC that investigates bacterial outbreaks in food and water.

Despite the increased frequency and the current outbreak of E. coli related to Chipotle, food safety experts say the supply chain from farm to table is safe.

“These kinds of incidents concern all of us and we want to find out what happened, and how to avoid it in the future," said Stephanie Page, program director for food safety and animal health at the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

In some cases, it’s difficult to know how safe produce is because it’s imported, she said.

“We don’t necessarily know under what kinds of conditions it was grown," Page said. "Having said that, most retailers that buy a lot of produce internationally require their suppliers to follow food safety standards.”

Domestically, Page said most farmers follow voluntary safety programs required by restaurants and grocery stores if they want to sell their products there. Some of those rules will soon become federal law.

At the farm level, employees, dirty irrigation water or even wildlife can contaminate food. At the packing house, pest control is a priority.

Larry Lev, an extension economist with Oregon State University, said Chipotle’s commitment to serving local foods when possible make the chain more susceptible to things like E. coli outbreaks.

“There’s the potential to have somewhat greater events that are smaller in size, with a more localized food supply chain — just because there are more warehouses, more places, more farms that are involved," Lev said.

Back in August, Chipotle had an outbreak of Salmonella in Minnesota that was linked to tomatoes.

“The tradeoff is if you go to a more national supply chain, if you have this kind of event it will be more broadly distributed. It may be more difficult to get back to the source," Lev said.

Though it could take awhile, health officials said they’d like to find the source of the E. coli before Chipotle reopens its restaurants around the region.