• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 3, 2015

As part of its response to an E. coli outbreak and two earlier foodborne outbreaks linked to Chipotle Mexican Grill since August, the restaurant chain is planning to implement more stringent standards for produce suppliers.

And that will likely mean that Chipotle, which uses local sourcing as a cornerstone of its "food with integrity" brand promise, will not be able to continue doing business with some local produce suppliers.

In emailed statements, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold told Bloomberg News and USA Today that the company is implementing "elevated" protocols for all produce suppliers, mainly in relation to ingredients testing, and that the company expects that some local suppliers will not be able to meet those standards.

The E. coli outbreak, which caused Chipotle to voluntarily close 43 Chipotle stores in Oregon and Washington for a time starting Halloween weekend, had as of late last month sickened 45 consumers in six states (most still in Oregon and Washington) who had eaten at Chipotles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency told Bloomberg that the cause still had not been isolated, but that it likely wasn't meat, because some of those affected were vegetarians. In August, the chain had separate incidents in which some customers were sickened by salmonella and norovirus. 

Some branding experts and analysts have said that they believe that Chipotle will rebound within months or a relatively short period because of the brand's strength, particularly with younger and health-oriented consumers, and because Chipotle has been proactive about addressing the crises.  

However, in the short term, the company's stock price has declined (by 11% in October and 9% in November, according to Bloomberg); and consumer perceptions of the brand, as reflected in its BrandIndex "buzz scores," have also dropped. Having to pull back on local sourcing is bound to another blow, at least temporarily, to the brand's long-envied healthful and sustainable positioning. 

It also raises questions for many food and restaurant brands hoping to ride the same wave by cutting back on or eliminating preservatives and using smaller, local sources for some ingredients. (Even McDonald's has made efforts to get in on the local movement in recent years.) 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which just released a review of 10 years of outbreak data to determine which foods are most often linked to outbreaks of foodborne disease, found that fresh produce items like cilantro, cucumbers, cantaloupes, and peppers that are often eaten raw cause more foodborne illness than any other single category of food.

The consumer advocate says this doesn't mean that Americans should avoid fruits and vegetables, because while the number of outbreaks and illnesses is large, on a pound-for-pound basis, fresh produce is safer than many other foods. 

“You are twice as likely to get sick from eating a serving of chicken as from eating a serving of vegetables,” said CSPI senior food safety attorney David Plunkett. “The data support improving the safety of our produce supply but don’t support eating less fruits and vegetables, which provide valuable nutrients.”

CSPI found that seafood is the second leading cause of outbreaks, but because the number of people sickened in any one outbreak is small, it caused fewer illnesses than most foods.  Measured on a pound-for-pound basis, however, seafood remains the leading cause of foodborne illness.

Regardless, as crisis management experts have always stressed, perception is to a large extent reality when it comes to public sentiment, and consumer concerns about fresh produce are growing as a result of a mounting number of outbreaks linked to produce purchased in stores, as well as used in restaurants.