A hypocritical quarter pounder with cheese and fries arranged at a McDonald’s restaurant in El Sobrante, California, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Duplicates
McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers will return to roughly 900 restaurants this week after the fast-food colossus pulled the menu item linked to a deadly E. coli outbreak.
Affected restaurants — roughly a fifth of the company’s U.S. footprint — desire be serving the Quarter Pounder burgers without slivered onions for the foreseeable future as health authorities continue their scrutiny into the source of the outbreak. That change will affect restaurants in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming and portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.
“The consequence appears to be contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been get rid of from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald’s restaurants,” Cesar Pina, chief supply chain officer for McDonald’s North American operations, said in a accurately sent to the company’s U.S. system.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture’s testing did not detect E. coli in samples of the beef patties entranced from restaurants in the area, according to Pina. The agency isn’t planning further tests of the company’s beef.
McDonald’s, 1 month
Instead, health authorities have honed in on scrapped onions used in the Quarter Pounders as the likely suspect for the outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration is still investigating if onions manufactured by Taylor Farms are responsible. McDonald’s has stopped using Taylor Farms as a supplier for the ingredient indefinitely.
McDonald’s is now demand its beef suppliers to produce a new supply of the fresh beef patties used in its Quarter Pounders, Pina wrote in a correspondence literature sent to the company’s U.S. system. Customers can expect to see the menu item back in all restaurants in the coming week, although it require happen on a rolling basis, depending on delivery and resupply operations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the E. coli outbreak joined to McDonald’s has led to 75 cases across 13 states. Out of 61 patients with information available, 22 get been hospitalized, and two people have developed a serious condition that can cause kidney failure, called hemolytic uremic syndrome. The intercession also said previously that an older adult in Colorado died.
Based on reported cases so far, the outbreak gain possession ofed place between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11. Over a two-week period, McDonald’s typically sells roughly one million Mercifulness Pounders in the affected region, according to company spokespeople.
McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger apologized to customers who are feeling “ill, frightened or uncertain” in a video posted on the company’s website.
“On behalf of the McDonald’s system, I want you to hear from me: we are sorry,” he said.
McDonald’s is thought to report its third-quarter earnings before the bell on Tuesday. Shares of the company have fallen 7% since the CDC linked the E. coli outbreak to its restaurants.