[Reno89519]

Livius writes "The original outbreaks came because Chipotle was trying to buy local, that is, buy from smaller producers in the area instead of the agribusiness farms. The problem turned out to be that the smaller producers had none of the safeguards or the capacity to produce clean, large-scale produce for a place like Chipotle, which uses insane quantities of lettuce and greens (where the infections came from)."

Do they still use local sources?

I read elsewhere that they do not have freezers, everything is fresh. I recall somewhere that they were trying to do prep differently as well. And something about how they clean and preserve everything.

Something is wrong with the chain--too many locations repeatedly are poisoning and even killing people over several years. Including employees.

I recall they floated renaming the chain in an attempt to start over.

Wonder if they have ever thought about rethinking their very operation?

And finally, this is too frequent, to dispersed, to be sabotage. Besides, why?

[livius]

There are probably other chains that want to shoot them down because they’re popular but they have a somewhat different format. The food is very fresh and freshly cooked. I only eat there once or twice a month, but it’s always been fresh and good and the service has always been good.

I think, from what I have read, that they have made changes in their food procurement procedures, which is sort of a pity for local suppliers. But it’s very hard to go from just being a local supplier to being nationally important, and many a company, not only in the food service biz, has foundered on this.

Still, I think it’s odd that the agencies couldn’t determine the source of the contagion, and said it wasn’t the standard e-coli or one of the other ordinary food poisoning sources.

Also, I’ve never understood why people on FR hate Chipotle so much. All restaurant owners are lefties, and in fact anybody with money is a lefty, but why the heck do Freepers hate Chipotle so much?