McDonald's will resume sale of its Quarter Pounder burgers, the company announced Sunday, after testing by authorities in Colorado ruled out the company’s beef patties as the source of a large E. coli outbreak that resulted in one death and caused illnesses among at least 75 others across multiple states.
McDonald's will resume the sale of its quarter pounder burgers after testing ruled out its beef ... [+]
In a statement, McDonald’s said the outbreak appeared to be “contained to a particular ingredient and geography” and said it was confident “any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald’s restaurants.”
The fast-food giant also cited testing by the Department of Agriculture in Colorado—the state with the largest number of people impacted by the outbreak—which said its microbiology lab “analyzed dozens of subsamples from all the lots and all samples were found to be negative for E. coli.”
McDonald’s also noted it had overlaid the CDC’s epidemiological data on the outbreak with its supply chain traceback data to rule out the Quarter Pounder patties as a source of E. Coli.
The company said it will resume distributing fresh beef patties to its restaurants in the impacted area, and the “Quarter Pounder is expected to be available in all restaurants in the coming week.”
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In its latest update on the outbreak, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it is also testing if the slivered onions served with the burger are the source of the outbreak. California-based produce company Taylor Farms, which supplied the slivered onions to the affected McDonald’s locations, has initiated a voluntary recall of its yellow onions. McDonald’s said, “the 900 restaurants that historically received slivered onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility will resume sales of Quarter Pounders without slivered onions.”