If 2015 wasn't Chipotle's year, there's a good chance 2016 won't be as well.
None other than the federal grand jury has called the attention Chipotle through a subpoena, Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday. This is connection with the criminal investigation launched against the norovirus cases in one of its restaurants found in Simi Valley, California, August last year.
The subpoena, which the company received a month ago, requests that Chipotle provide them with documents pertaining to the incident.
Last August at least 200 people, both customers and employees, were diagnosed with norovirus, a common cause of human gastroenteritis, which can spread through contaminated food and surfaces, New York Times mentioned. This number is considerably higher than what was initially reported. The common factor among all of them was a Chipotle restaurant that operates in Simi Valley.
During the investigation by Ventura County officials, they found significant lapses in food safety and hygiene including allowing sick employees to continue reporting for work, hiring unlicensed food handlers, and finding fruit flies.
For the federal investigation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) along LA's attorney's office, is working closely with the county authorities, who argued that Chipotle was "slow" in reporting the norovirus outbreak. It took them five days after they knew about the illness before they informed the county. By then, the number of customers sick was already more than 55.
So far, Chipotle has remained mum on both the subpoena and the criminal probe except for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing it lodged. But its spokesperson Chris Arnold has confirmed they will be cooperating fully with the investigation.
The probe doesn't include the other foodborne-related illnesses Chipotle faced in 2015. Around the same time as the norovirus outbreak, cases of Salmonella were reported in Minnesota while an E. coli outbreak was reported in Oregon and Washington in October.
