McDonald’s scrambles to contain deadly E Coli outbreak pulling Quarter Pounders from a fifth of all stores

McDonald’s has pulled Quarter Pounders from one in five US stores nationwide in a bid to curb an outbreak of E. coli linked to its burgers.

One person has died and ten have been hospitalized among the 49 believed to have fallen ill from the outbreak, according to the CDC.

The CDC believes fresh beef patties or fresh slivered onions could carry the contamination, although an investigation was still ongoing as of Wednesday.

Some states have stopped selling Quarter Pounders altogether until the cause is identified, while others have found different suppliers.

McDonald’s market cap plunged by $12bn overnight on Tuesday as the chain scrambled to contain the outbreak.

The Quarter Pounder is one of its best-sellers, selling around 1m burgers at around $6.39 each in the affected regions every fortnight. 

The electronic menu order board still displays Quarter Pounder hamburgers but with a prompt to tell consumers they will be available soon at a McDonald’s drive-thru Wednesday, Oct. 23

The chain said yesterday it had not ruled out beef as the potential source of the E coli outbreak, after initial findings suggested onions could be carrying the bacteria.  

The restaurant also serves raw, slivered onions on one of its breakfast sandwiches, but that sandwich isn’t available at the impacted stores.

Other burgers, like the Big Mac, use diced, cooked onions.

McDonald’s said it was still searching for a new regional supplier for fresh onions while Quarter Pounders were taken off menus in a number of states.

The chain has more than 14,000 U.S. stores and serves 1 million Quarter Pounders every two weeks in the affected 12-state area. 

After the company’s market cap dropped by $12billion overnight on Tuesday, investment platform Saxo warned the company ‘could face pressure across its revenue’, having lost the equivalent of 1.8 billion Quarter Pounders.

Charu Chanana, Chief Investment Strategist, said: ‘The Quarter Pounder, alongside the Big Mac, is a major revenue generator for McDonald’s, with reports suggesting that these classic items account for about 70% of food sales in top markets.

‘Food safety concerns are key for restaurant operators. As McDonald’s grapples with this unfolding crisis, its revenues, earnings and stock price could face pressure.’

Stocks closed at $315 on Tuesday.

The outbreak appears have deterred some customers from entering restaurants. 

Adriean Madden pulled up outside a McDonald’s outside Denver on Wednesday for his usual afternoon snack but then decided against it. 

He said he was unsure how E. coli spreads or contaminates other foods, and he thinks McDonald´s should be more forthcoming.

‘This affects my decision with coming to McDonald´s in the future,’ Madden said. 

‘I feel like the information isn’t as widely spread. I didn’t see any notices on the door, and then I saw vehicles going through the drive through just as if nothing was going on.’

A McDonald’s Quarter Pounder in New York’s Times Square on Wednesday

Symptoms of Shiga toxin-producing E.coli include severe diarrhea and vomiting

McDonald´s said it has worked closely with federal food safety regulators since late last week, when it was alerted to the potential outbreak. 

The company said the scope of the problem and the popularity of its products have complicated efforts to identify the contamination source.

McDonald’s is known for its stringent food safety guidelines and protocols, said Chris Gaulke, a professor of food and beverage management at Cornell University´s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. 

The company said Wednesday that the supplier regularly tested its onions for E. coli, for example.

‘Given the volume of food that they go through, how infrequently this happens to McDonald’s is a testament to the effort that they take,’ Gaulke said.

But some experts questioned why McDonald’s simply stopped selling one sandwich and didn’t close restaurants for further investigation.

‘Good practice would have been to close all the restaurants,’ said Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who has sued companies over food poisoning outbreaks. 

‘Until we know definitively what the product was that made people sick, consumers should be aware.’

Marler said cross-contamination remains a potential possibility at the affected restaurants until they are thoroughly cleaned.

Asked why it didn’t close any restaurants, McDonald´s said nothing in the government´s investigation indicated there were issues with its food preparation practices. 

In an interview on the ‘Today’ show Wednesday, McDonald’s U.S. President Joe Erlinger also said it’s likely that whatever product was contaminated has already passed through the company’s supply chain.

A McDonald’s pick-up window in Chicago on October 23

Officials have not yet traced the source of the outbreak of  E.coli (STEC), a rare strain of the diarrhoea-causing bug

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the outbreak late Tuesday.

It said infections were reported between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11 in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

State and local public health officials were interviewing people about the foods they ate in the week before they got sick. 

Of the 18 people interviewed as of Tuesday, all reported eating at McDonald´s, and 16 people reported eating a beef hamburger.

Twelve reported eating a Quarter Pounder.

McDonald’s said it’s unlikely the beef in the Quarter Pounder was the source, since it comes from multiple suppliers and is cooked at a high enough temperature to kill E. coli.

McDonald’s said its initial findings suggest that some of the reported illnesses were linked to onions from a single supplier, which the company didn’t name. 

McDonald’s said the onions are cleaned and sliced by the supplier and then packaged for use on individual Quarter Pounders.

The incubation period for E. coli is only a couple of days, so illness would be quickly apparent to anyone affected, said Donald Schaffner, a food safety expert at Rutgers University. 

‘If you ate these burgers in September and now it´s the middle of October and you didn´t get sick, you´re probably OK,’ he said.

McDonald’s said its initial findings suggest that some of the reported illnesses were linked to onions from a single supplier 

Of the 18 people interviewed as of Tuesday, all reported eating at McDonald´s, and 16 people reported eating a beef hamburger 

E. coli bacteria are harbored in the guts of animals and found in the environment. Infections can cause severe illness, including fever, stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea. 

People who develop symptoms of E. coli poisoning should seek health care immediately and tell the provider what they ate.

The type of bacteria implicated in the McDonald’s case causes about 74,000 infections in the U.S. annually, leading to more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths each year, according to the CDC. 

In general, E. coli infections were lower in 2023 than in recent years and cases of severe kidney injury caused by the bacteria remained stable, according to latest federal data.

Outbreaks at restaurant chains are rare, but they do happen.