Chipotle vows ‘aggressive strategy’ as E. coli spreads to six states
Though the restaurant chain’s shares plummeted after additional cases were found, the brand seems to be staying above water with its consumers.
On Friday afternoon, the burrito chain’s shares dropped 12 percent after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that E. coli cases had spread to Chipotle customers in six states.
Early this month, E. coli cases were limited to customers in the Pacific Northwest . Chipotle closed 43 restaurants in Oregon and Washington “out of an abundance of caution,” and all had reopened as of Nov. 12 after passing health department inspections.
The CDC said that people have been infected with E. coli in Minnesota, California, Ohio, New York and Oregon—in addition to cases in Washington and Oregon. Of the 45 cases of E. coli infections, 43 people say they had eaten at a Chipotle location within a week of the illness.
Campaign Magazine’s editor Danny Rogers wrote a piece in Independent saying Chipotle’s declining share prices were caused by crisis mismanagement and bad PR:
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