Restaurants Refocus Food Safety Efforts

“We’re sorry, but we’re temporarily closed due to a supply chain issue. We’ll reopen as soon as possible.”

In fall of 2015, the burrito dreams of hungry customers were abruptly dashed when they arrived to their local Chipotle, only to find the restaurant empty and a sign bearing that very message taped onto a locked door.

A “supply chain issue” might sound harmless—but as it turned out, Chipotle’s woes were anything but. The brand was forced to temporarily shutter 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon because of an E. coli outbreak linked to its kitchens. And the mess stretched far beyond just the Pacific Northwest. On top of the E. coli bug, salmonella and the norovirus were also traced back to Chipotle’s restaurants, wrecking havoc from coast to coast and sickening more than 500 people.

The consequences for Chipotle have been severe. Between October and December 2015, its stock price plummeted 22 percent, and the company’s image as a more wholesome alternative to other fast-food chains is now under fire.

But the awareness of the frequency and potential severity of food-borne illness has grown dramatically in the past 20 years. Many experts believe the turning point came in 1993, when widespread outrage followed the revelation that E. coli-tainted meat from San Diego-based fast-food chain Jack in the Box had infected 732 people. The outbreak killed four children under the age of 10, and left 178 other victims with permanent health problems.

Since then, public attention on food safety has increased, and more restaurants are taking precautions to tighten and clean up their supply chains to protect themselves from being the next culprit in another major outbreak.

“Fast-food companies are 100 percent reliant on their food supply to send them something that is pathogen-free, but the supply chain is still extremely reluctant to test every food product it provides,” food safety consultant Mansour Samadpour told the Washington Post. “Many companies are starting to do it, but the reluctance is real and it’s problematic—and that’s getting in the way of food safety.”

Panera Bread is just one of many companies rolling up their sleeves to clean their supply chain—but they’re not new to heightened food safety awareness. Panera was the first major chain to switch to antibiotic-free proteins, which it did in 2004 starting with its chicken. The chain was also among the first to remove artificial trans fats and started sourcing grass-fed beef in 2014. Now, the company has rolled out their “No-No List”—and as a result, more than 80 ingredients have been removed from their menu, such as artificial flavors and preservatives. All of these measures were a concerted effort by Panera to get back to the basics.

“We had to ask ourselves some core questions when looking at every single ingredient. What is its source? How is it processed? If there was a question mark or a vague answer or something we didn’t feel comfortable with in terms of its source or processing, we said that it probably belongs on our No-No list,” said Sara Burnett, Panera’s senior quality assurance manager to QSR.

But to answer those questions, the brand had to better communicate with their suppliers. According to Burnett, their team walked through the suppliers’ ingredient declarations to understand everything that went into their soups, salads and sandwiches. This required suppliers to go back to their own vendors to learn more about those ingredients. The Panera team then told the suppliers which ingredients they wanted removed and how they wanted the product reformulated.

And what Panera ultimately found was that their supply partners stepped up and started to take the initiative to clean up their own products. This created a dialog between the brand and their suppliers to better understand exactly where their food was coming from and what was going into it.

Ultimately, for any restaurant chain looking to offer cleaner, safer ingredients, having a deep understanding and robust line of communication with their suppliers is the critical first step to making that happen. And today, more and more restaurants are making the effort to re-evaluate their supply chains, too. McDonald’s announced that within two years, it would only serve chicken raised without use of antibiotics. Taco Bell announced a switch to cage-free eggs. And Roti Mediterranean Grill tapped Australian and South American cattle for dishes that will showcase the grass-fed, pasture-raised beef that customers have come to expect.