Health department says food left at unsafe temperatures led to an illness outbreak at an Ohio location last month

After two weeks of mystery, local health department officials have identified the likely cause of a foodborne illness outbreak linked to a Chipotle Mexican Grill in Powell, Ohio. An article in Nation’s Restaurant News detailed the findings that food left at unsafe temperatures led to 647 reported illnesses between July 26-30, prompting the restaurant chain to respond to the news by implementing nationwide retraining next week.

“While this incident impacted only one restaurant, Chipotle field leadership will be retraining all restaurant employees nationwide beginning next week on food safety and wellness protocols. To ensure consistent food safety execution, we will be adding to our daily food safety routines a recurring employee knowledge assessment of our rigorous food safety standards,” CEO Brian Niccol said in a statement.

Chipotle previously retrained employees and heightened its food safety protocols after several highly-publicized foodborne illness outbreaks in 2015.

Read the full article here.