McDonald’s has yanked Quarter Pounders from about a fifth of its U.S. locations after a deadly E.coli outbreak was linked to the popular burger, the company said Wednesday.
federal agencies It was announced on Tuesday that one person has died Another 49 became ill in Colorado and in 10 states in the Midwest and West.
The nation’s largest fast-food chain said Wednesday it believes the chopped onions on its Quarter Pounder were responsible for the outbreak.
An unnamed supplier of onions is no longer providing the vegetables to McDonald’s restaurants, the company said.
It has not severed ties with any beef suppliers, however, officials said they could not rule out that the contaminated ground meat was at fault.
Nonetheless, according to an update on Wednesday, McDonald’s removed Quarter Pounders from about 2,700 locations in 12 states. Centers for Disease Control,
A spokeswoman said the FDA and CDC alerted McDonald’s late last week about illnesses linked to its food.
But the first reported case involving McDonald’s dates back to Sept. 27 — nearly a month ago — leaving some food safety experts scratching their heads as to why it took so long to alert the public.
“The information flow is coming out more slowly than usual,” food safety expert James Marsden told The Post on Wednesday.
“The rapid increase in reported cases in general will raise concerns [government] The public will be alerted soon.”
A McDonald’s spokesperson said the CDC had interviewed 18 people with confirmed cases and 12 of them said they had eaten the Quarter Pounder before becoming ill.
A CDC spokesperson told The Post, “The Colorado Department of Health notified CDC on 10/10 about an increase in E. coli illnesses in their state and after laboratory testing confirmed it was a multistate outbreak.” And no, CDC began an investigation on 10/15.” Just one local outbreak in Colorado. Investigators are working as quickly as possible to identify the contaminated component.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s franchises are experiencing a downturn in business – a slowdown in sales is resulting in McDonald’s This year the emphasis is on value meals.
Its shares fell more than 5% on Wednesday.
“This will impact all of us and people will be hesitant to come,” one franchise operator, who did not want to be identified, told The Post.
A McDonald’s spokesperson declined to say whether the outbreak had an impact on the company’s foot traffic.
McDonald’s sells more than two million Quarter Pounders a day, franchisees said, adding that if the outbreak were widespread there would be thousands of cases.
The franchisee said the company is being “very, very, very cautious” in removing Quarter Pounders from its restaurants.
