Officials from the fast food chain McDonald’s said Thursday that the fresh onions that were linked to a deadly E. coli case came from a Californian produce company. At the same time, some fast food chains, like Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Burger King, took onions off their plates.
Officials from McDonald’s said that Taylor Farms in Salinas, California, sent onions to one distribution center. This caused the fast food business to take Quarter Pounder hamburgers off the menu in several states. McDonald’s didn’t say what kind of building it was.
At least 49 people in 10 states have become sick because of the burgers, and one person has died, according to government health officials. Police said they were looking at slivered onions as a possible cause of the infections.
A big supplier to restaurants all over the country, U.S. Foods, said Thursday that Taylor Farms had recalled whole and diced peeled yellow onions this week because they might be contaminated with E. coli. A representative for U.S. Foods said the recalled onions came from a Taylor Farms plant in Colorado. The wholesaler also said that it wasn’t a McDonald’s supplier and that the recall didn’t include any items sold at McDonald’s eateries.
Taylor Farms did not answer any of the many requests for feedback.
The US Food and Drug Administration did not confirm that the company is looking into Taylor Farms. Someone from the agency said Thursday that they are “looking at all sources” of the outbreak.
While that was going on, other major restaurant chains stopped using fresh onions for a while.
“As a precautionary measure and to keep an eye on the recent E. coli outbreak,” Yum Brands said in a statement. “Fresh onions have been taken out of some Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC restaurants.”
Based in Louisville, Kentucky The company that makes Yum Brands wouldn’t say where the onions went or if it buys from the same source as McDonald’s. Yum Brands said it would keep doing what authorities and its suppliers tell it to do.
Restaurant Brands International, the company that owns Burger King, said Thursday that onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado facility are used in 5% of its stores. The people who work at Burger King restaurants get fresh onions delivered whole, and then they wash, peel, and cut them up.
Restaurant Brands said it asked restaurants that got onions from the Colorado facility to get rid of them two days ago, even though it hadn’t been called by health officials and there were no signs of illness. The business said it is getting more onions from other sources.
Chipotle said Thursday that it doesn’t get onions or any other products from Taylor Farms in Colorado.
In the past, cases have been linked to onions. After 19 people got sick with E. coli in 2015, Taylor Farms took back a celery and onion mix that was used in Costco chicken salads. Eighty people got sick and one died last year after eating bagged diced onions from Oxnard, California’s Gills Onions. The onions were contaminated with salmonella.
At least 10 people have been taken to the hospital because of the McDonald’s outbreak. One of them was a child who got a serious kidney disease problem because of the infection. From September 27 to October 11, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that people were sick.
The people who were sick had E. coli 0157:H7, which is a type of bacteria that makes a poison. The CDC says it causes about 74,000 cases in the U.S. every year, which result in more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths.
A man from Greeley, Colorado, is fighting McDonald’s because they gave him an E. coli infection. He said in a lawsuit filed this week that he got sick two days after eating at a neighborhood McDonald’s on October 4. Health officials told him that his infection was part of the spread after he went to the emergency room.
If you eat food that is contaminated with E. coli, you could get sick quickly, within a day or two. Usually, they include fever, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, and signs of dehydration like thirst, weakness, and not going to the bathroom much or at all. Children younger than 5 years old, the elderly, pregnant women, and people whose immune systems aren’t strong enough should avoid getting this illness.
Article Source: McDonald’s says onions from California-based produce company linked to deadly E. coli outbreak
