Chipotle Shares Rise After Chief Apologizes, Reiterates Safety Plan

December 10, 2015, 11:45:00 AM EDT By Dow Jones Business News

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Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. shares rose Thursday after co-Chief Executive and founder Steve Ells apologized on national television for the restaurant chain's food-safety crises, saying it will become the "safest place to eat."

Mr. Ells appeared Thursday on NBC's "Today" show and said he was sorry for the people who have become ill after eating at Chipotle. He said the company was inspecting its food-safety procedures.

"I'm sorry for the people who got sick. They are having a tough time, and I feel terrible about that," Mr. Ells said. "We're doing a lot to rectify this and to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Chipotle shares rose 5% to close at $575.43 on Thursday but were still down 20% over the past three months.

Mr. Ells didn't detail the new food-safety procedures but said they would be "10 to 15 years ahead of industry norms." Internal teams of public-health and food-safety professionals are inspecting Chipotle's entire distribution chain to develop the new procedures.

Chipotle suffered another setback later Thursday when the Seattle and King County Public Health Department closed one of the Chipotle restaurants in Seattle that the company had recently reopened following an E. coli outbreak there. Health officials cited repeated food-safety violations at that location in the weeks since it reopened, specifically a failure to hold food at proper temperatures.

"Chipotle had voluntarily closed all 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon during an E. coli outbreak in October and November and was required to meet strict criteria for reopening," the local health department said in a statement.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said the production line in question was located in the back of the restaurant and was intended for fulfilling to-go orders. "We are looking into it to determine a cause and will address it," he said.

Chipotle has battled a number of outbreaks at its restaurants in recent months. It closed a restaurant Monday afternoon in Boston after more than 100 Boston College students became ill due to a norovirus. Tests so far haven't detected other pathogens, indicating the Boston cases are most likely unrelated to an Chipotle's E. coli bacteria outbreak earlier this year.

Mr. Ells said Thursday that after "thousands and thousands of tests" the source of the E. coli outbreak hasn't yet been identified.

From late October through mid-November, at least 52 people became ill from E. coli in nine states. Chipotle has more than 1,900 locations in the U.S.

The food-safety concerns have hurt Chipotle's business and prompted the company to sharply reduce fourth-quarter sales and earnings estimates.