McDonald’s announced at a media briefing on Sunday that it will be bringing back the Quarter Pounder burger to restaurants affected by the E. coli outbreak within the next week.
The announcement comes after the Colorado Department of Agriculture reported that samples of Quarter Pounder beef taken from the restaurant tested negative for E. coli.
In a statement accompanying the press conference, the fast food giant said it used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its supply chain to rule out beef as the source of the contamination.
Cesar Piña, McDonald’s chief supply chain, said: “This issue appears to be isolated to a specific ingredient and region, and the contaminated products associated with this outbreak have been removed from our supply chain and all McDonald’s restaurants We remain confident that they have been removed.” North American officials said in a statement:
The company announced that burgers will return to menus without onion slices at 900 restaurants that receive onion slices from the Colorado Springs facility of distributor Taylor Farms, which is under investigation by the Food and Drug Administration.
Quarter Pounder will be back without onions
McDonald’s announced that it will return Quarter Pounders that were removed from restaurants in the following states:
- colorado
- Kansas
- Utah
- wyoming
The menu item is set to return to the next part.
- idaho
- iowa
- missouri
- montana
- nebraska
- nevada
- new mexico
- oklahoma
The company said the burger will be back within a week. The company added that it has directed its beef suppliers to produce fresh Quarter Pounder beef for restaurants.
The number of sick patients has reached 75 and is expected to increase further.
As of Oct. 24, the outbreak had sickened a total of 75 people in 13 states, with 22 hospitalizations and one death in Colorado. Two people also developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that can lead to kidney failure.
Colorado reported the most cases with 26, followed by Montana with 13 and Nebraska with 11. The remaining states have reported five or fewer cases.
Food safety experts previously told USA TODAY that similar to McDonald’s statement, there could be more cases related to the outbreak.
Three lawsuits have been filed against McDonald’s related to the outbreak, and lawyers for those already filed expect more to come.
This story has been updated with additional information.
